(born 1981, Karachi; lives and works in Karachi)

Doing Krishna
2006
Gouache on wasli
H. 10 x W. 13 in. (25.4 x 33 cm)
Collection of Sameera Raja, Canvas Gallery, Karachi
Image courtesy of the artist

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Open Wide I
2008
Gouache on wasli
H. 9 5/8 x W. 12 5/16 in. (24.5 x 31.3 cm)
Collection of Amna and Ali Naqvi
Image courtesy of the artist

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Open Wide is a body of work that explores pleasure as a consequence of pain and vice versa. It is about being willingly probed and invaded without any sort of retaliation.

Since the sixteenth century the Radha-Krishna amour appears prominently as a motif in North Indian paintings. Krishna is the personification of love. The series of works titled Doing Krishna is my twenty-first-century representation of love. The electric drill as an object is bulky, solid, and functional, violent and invasive in character. It represents the male as a sexually active and socially accepted aggressor. In contrast, the process of painting it is gradual and tender; the image develops in layers and there is sensitivity and sensuousness in the process. My painting is neither a submission nor a resistance.