Valiant parade of colours

In her early student days she had Monirul Islam and Rafiqun Nabi as her guides for her water colour. She lost her father early in her school days, but today has her mother and brother to help her along, especially in arranging her exhibitions. 'In 1995,' Masuma says, 'I attended a workshop under a German painter Heller and this helped me a great deal. Our subject was water and we had worked with water colour.'

Asked to say a few words about her teaching career, Masuma says, 'I've been teaching since 1986, doing workshop with children for three months at a stretch. The young ones enjoy their painting so much that I have to drive them to put away their work when it is time for them to go home.'

Earlier she brought in human emotion and nature in her works. This time too she has brought human figures and faces, along with nature, which is her driving force as she finds the flora around her very inspiring. In 'Cholo jai' she depicts three women of different ages, forging ahead in life. In 'Pahela Falgun' once again she brings in the beauty and energy in women. This is mainly to attract the viewers who go in for realism. As opposed to this approach is something abstract like 'Valentine's Day' with green representing the young generation and red speaking of love and devotion.

'Worried women,' an oil on canvas, shows serious looking women, dressed in simple saris with brown borders. In the backdrop is a picturesque thatched roof with climbing creeper. 'My lost friend' also has serious thoughts blended in the portraiture that is surrounded by flowers to relieve the poignant thoughts of the past when all was well and friendship was a simple element taken for granted.

Most of her work has dealt with nature in one form or another. In 'Hope', in acrylic, there are flowers in orange, yellow, pink and red. There is the water in front and sky at the back. In 'Feel me' we have a delightful seated figure surrounded with trees, bushes and flowers.

Masuma loves to experiment with form and in her work has blended reality with abstraction. She won the President Medal and Honorarium in the then all Pakistan Competition for Children in 1960-61. Apart from her BFA, she took part in two artist workshops. She was selected as one of the top 10 women personalities of 1997 by Anonna.