About Me

Seashell, shell gold, squirrel hair handmade brush.

 

Hand used as a palette.

 

The Red Tree In Our Garden of Eden

 

LANDSCAPES OF CONSCIENCE

 INTRO TEXT

 

Predators eye their prey. Pretty flowers bloom. Mythical creatures confront 21st-century missiles. The landscapes of Pakistani-Canadian artist Rabia Rizvi are studies in stark contrasts. They depict two very different worlds existing side by side. The strong and the weak. Oppressed and oppressors. Trained in the style of 16th and 17th-century Mughal and Persian miniature paintings, Rabia’s art reflects its characteristic focus on jewel-like colors, minute details, and a complexity that invites the eye to wander around a composition freed from single-point perspective. Each piece reflects Rabia’s reaction to the horrors and injustice she sees in the world around her. Undoubtedly controversial, Rabia’s work is irrefutably passionate.

 

--Walter L. Meyer, AWB Founder

   www.artwithoutboundaries.art

 

 

 

ARTIST STATEMENT

 RABIA RIZVI

PAKISTANI-CANADIAN

 

My paintings are imaginary landscapes that convey underlying socio-political themes.

 

I create in the style of the traditional 16th- and 17th-century Persian and Mughal miniatures. I studied in Lahore’s National College of Arts (NCA) under the guidance of Ustad Bashir Ahmad. Intricate, detailed, decorative, and colourful, these paintings were usually illustrations in valuable manuscripts. (Art historians termed them “miniatures” because of their small size.)

I’ve always loved painting landscapes, and continued to depict the beauty of the world after moving to Canada in the late 90s. But more recent world events—the separation of immigrant Mexican children from their parents, India’s invasion of Kashmir, the genocide in Gaza—utterly changed my perspective. I became aware of the increasing imbalance between rich and poor, powerful and weak, oppressed and oppressor. And the way so-called “champions of human rights” often turn a blind eye to horrific events.

My work now portrays this widening social divide, focusing on the “other”—those weaker communities unable to escape their fate. To do this, I use a variety of symbols: the colour red and bird feathers (death), trees and water (life), toys (children), fish (freedom within a confined space), roots (protection), and certain animals and birds to depict either predators (snakes and hawks) or prey.

 

But I also add some elements just for the viewer to ask questions, and to wonder.

 

Each of my landscapes has a story to tell. I invite you to meet their inhabitants.