CURATING LOCAL COLOUR

In my last post about Lebanese furniture designer Nada Debs I mentioned how increasingly over the years young people have turned their backs on their ancestral heritage and traditions, choosing instead to emerge themselves in an alien culture and traditions they think are more suited to their liking -  but there is also a very small (and steadily increasing) number of young people who are finding the value in their ancestral heritage too precious to ignore or discard lightly. I have tremendous admiration for these young men and women who see their heritage not as shackles that tie them down to a particular way of living and thinking, but as an opportunity to present themselves to the world uniquely.

Summaiya Jillani, is one such very young Pakistani artist, who rose to modest fame in the art circles from virtual obscurity last year after she painted and exhibited her interpretaion of a local Marilyn Monroe. Her Pakistani Monroe  is clad in a vibrant shalwar kameez (local dress), a fusion of colour and pattern, her signature blond hair is in a long plait over one shoulder and big dangling earrings hang from her earlobes - but of course she is striking the same famous over-the-vent Monroe pose.


Summaiya's art is drenched in loud, in-your-face colours  typical of street-poster-art of her country - but she uses global pop icons as her subjects and gives them a local flavor and identity that is interesting to say the least, if a tad comical. There is nothing serious or too deep about her art but that's the beauty of it, it is something everyone gets and enjoys - from an uninformed person on the street to the well-informed intellectual.



Frida Khalo - portrait of an artist best known for her self portraits



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