WARDHA SHABBIR

At first glance, Wardha Shabbir’s work could be confused with a colorful portrait of nature, landscapes of flamboyant and lush forests, executed with the precision of a miniaturist. But in Shabbir’s meticulous pictorial language, trees are much more than a mere static representation. The artist is rooted in the process, in time, in evolution, in growth, and in her work lies a desire for survival: The source of my creative stimulus lies in the evolution of a tree; visually adopting it as an emblem of resistance and allowing it to teach me hope, as the artist states.

Wardha Shabbir’s paintings can be read like maps, enriched by a multitude of leaves, dots and lines that compose them. The alluring green vegetation and vivid tones create interactive images that linger in the viewer’s mind and the frames themselves become more than just surrounding spaces of the paper, they are a continuity of the canvas.

Her work invites us to explore new spaces within her own paintings. The image is gradually revealed to the eye of the observer, and then demystified until its reality is unraveled and elucidated. Within these paradisiacal images, Shabbir carefully incorporates symbols of loss and despair, but also hope and survival, in the form of passages, enclosures, light, and sometimes even the absence of light.

Playing with dualities and perception, the artist brings together the organic with a structured geometry, within and around the painting. In her works, different dimensions intersect and interact. The great variety of nature and angles represents the abyss between what is real and what is felt. When our dimensions intersect through spontaneous interactions or relationships, we allow ourselves to become part of each other’s realities. By accepting this theory of life, we form true bonds with each other, which is why we share ideas, dilemmas and solutions that transcend the traditional limits of space and time.

The vegetation in her paintings represents those human connections, their infinite possibilities, the interdependence of that ecosystem in which each one nourishes each other, sharing the elements air, water, light, all contained on the surface of the paper.

What better way is there than to allow ourselves to find gratitude in the splendor of nature evolving around us and embrace an “inner bloom” by allowing ourselves to persist as a tree?.