Articles about Mazher Nizar
The Hindu (November 2, 2006)
www.hindu.com/2006/11/02/stories/2006110203360200.htm
An blend of Arabic and Indian traditions
Madhur Tankha
NEW DELHI: He creates artistic impressions that are an amalgam of Indian culture and Arabic visual traditions. India-born Yemeni artist Mazher Nizar's works are basically nuances of symbolic expressions and romantic influences. Now Mazher's first solo exhibition in India titled "Queen of Sheeba" is all set to open at Visual Arts Gallery of India Habitat Centre here on November 6. The five-day exhibition will include over 25 large paintings in acrylics on canvas and watercolours.
Born in Mumbai in a Yemeni family, Mazher's upcoming exhibition showcases queens as spiritual women.
The discerning art lovers can find not just Yemeni motifs and fragments but also themes from a historical point of view and Arabic writings. The artist's lines and figures, however, have been done in a purely traditional Indian style.
The title of the show draws inspiration from the ancient Yemeni history when the "Queen of Sheeba" reigned over Yemen. His paintings move from the Queen's persona to an expression about women in general. The paintings interchange between the different worlds of magic, romance and faith.
As Mazher transfers his creations from reality to apparition-like figures where he merges history with myths and philosophy, we find in his paintings women with wings or birds with human heads and other creatures that remind us of Indian culture and traditional Yemeni art.
Mazher graduated in Graphic Arts from the Government College of Art and Craft in Kolkata. Since 1986, Mazher has been living and working in Sana'a in Yemen.
Besides participating in many national and international art exhibitions, Mazher has received critical acclaim for his unique way of painting. His paintings seem to be an illusion created out of historical legends in bold colours and techniques that make them very pleasing and enjoyable.
Progressive Muslima News
Yemen Artist Mazher Nizar
January 25, 2007
Women behind the veil
Malvika Kaul (Hindu Times)
Yemeni artist Nizar tries to build his paintings of women around a pair of eyes.
Most of us, when we see a veiled Muslim woman, rush to form a common image — women bound by tradition, trapped in religious conservatism. But Mazher Nizar, a Yemeni painter, has the eye to see the person behind the veil. He paints the women behind the veil in different hues and forms — as spiritual beings, as victims who struggle and find a way, proud and loving, sad and forgiving — women who lead fascinating lives behind the purdah.
At a recent exhibition in New Delhi (at the Visual Art Gallery) Nizar showcased “Queen of Sheba”, a series of paintings that attempt to show Islamic women as more than just burqa-clad women…
