“The job of an artist is to offer a sanctuary of beauty to an ugly world.” That’s exactly what this 19 year old contemporary artist, Maliha Abbas, is doing. At this young age, Maliha Abbas is an inspiration for today’s youth. An artist, traveler and an explorer, Maliha is so in love with art that she is teaching herself all about it. She believes that no one needs a teacher and that we all posses the ability to create art.
This artist is the definition of a strong, independent Pakistani woman. Maliha’s paintings of beautiful women fused with other worldly aspects ensure that each one is truly unique and memorable. Over the years, her photography and paintings have appeared in publications and galleries throughout the globe.
During being a part of a artistic retreat in Thailand, Maliha received a medal of honor from Peace Revolution while representing Pakistan and being the youngest artist to be selected amongst twenty artists from all around the World.
Maliha has had international exhibitions while displaying her work about different cultures, to decrease the chaos that is born because of differentiation. Her work advocates to bring nations closer. A major topic that this artist works on is spreading and sharing the right message about her country, Pakistan, and as a ‘Muslimah’, she tries to break stereotypes about Islam that many people internationally have wrought up. Working towards promoting women empowerment, Maliha captures a lot of women and their stories in her art for this cause. Consisting of a series of lively portraits and her magical paintings, her passion for art and her style reflects the image of Maliha’s artistic mind. Each piece holds a special place for her, each figure resonates on a different level. The female subjects that grace her paintings are forceful in their feminist gaze; surreal and whimsical.
A motivational speaker indeed, Maliha speaks about how change starts with just one of us and explaining how we all can make big changes by simply doing what we love even if its as simple as writing, speaking, creating or even just our strong thoughts.
Traveled to 11 countries with what she earns from selling her art work and doing photography, this independent young traveler believes that every culture is beautiful and she tries to portray the positivity of different cultures through her art. Maliha believes that the way her country and culture is taken wrong at times, many other cultures and countries might be going through the same thing and that is a big reason behind her traveling and exploring.
Her photography takes an interesting take on things as well as she plays with different objects and turns it into her playful surreal object.
Living with colors and celebrating the love affair of vibrance, and expressing the unspoken through art, youth like Maliha Abbas is the future of Pakistan and will soon hopefully make a global change for the good.
by Atiya M. Ali
Karachi University
