|
 Parvin
Shere (www.parvinshere.com) and
I have rarely met. Yet, it feels as if our paths
have often crossed, even as if we have trod the
same ground side by side for a time. For more
than 20 years my work -- as an artist,
photographer, writer and curator -- has focused
on respectfully revealing the realities of
ordinary lives, beyond Western stereotypes, in
places we in the West tend to know little about.
I believe Shere and I would share many interests
if we traveled to the same places. Due to her
humanity and spiritual energy, even without
seeing her art I would be predisposed to
admiring it.
My comments come out of viewing Shere’s art,
reading some of her words and essays about her
by others. They do not come out of a personal
knowledge of the artist as a person. As a
result, I am sure that some of my observations
will be outside of what the artist has
considered, maybe even occasionally incorrect.
However, I believe the general sentiments and
overall picture of a graceful and caring
humanitarian, multitalented artist, mother and
spouse are correct.
 Not
understanding nor able to read the Urdu text and
believing that not the meaning but likely some
of the flow of Shere’s thoughts is lost in
translation, I do not want to concentrate on the
written word in the book Fragments. I read the
book to capture the general direction and then
went back to look at the art with the odd glance
at the text to fill in a few blanks. My wish in
this brief reflection is to stay with the art
and my perception of the soul of the artist.
My first general impression when seeing Shere’s
art as a whole is that she is a Canadian. I say
this as a compliment, as often to be a Canadian
in the 21st Century is to be a person grounded
in more than one land – hopefully, comfortable
in both the new and first land and culture.
Shere grew up in India but her brush knows the
Canadian landscape as if she is at home. Calling
Silence, for example, is the Canadian prairie,
evocative for anyone having spent time in its
wide open but loosely corralled spaces. Defeat,
a narrow vertical piece, calls to mind the
crunch of snow under foot as the last light of
day heralds the coming dark and bitter cold of
an inland Canadian winter night. That crunch of
snow is not known at the western edge of Canada,
in Vancouver and Victoria where the cold does
not fall to crunch level. It is certainly not
known anywhere near where Shere grew up.
 But
Shere’s landscapes, Canadian or otherwise, are
not just about the literal, realistically
rendered scene. A look at the poems that do
directly correlate confirm that. She is not set
on simply painting pretty pictures. There seems
to always be emotion – longing, wondering,
loving, gentle, thoughtful, hurting, hoping,
seldom if ever crying out loudly or
triumphantly. Hers seems a gentle soul crying
out for goodness to raise its head for the sake
of her children, for the sake of all those who
suffer.
Tears, with a close up of a distraught child
backed by a stark, desert landscape, soldiers
clamoring for cover behind a wall in a land they
do not know or understand, brings Shere’s work
out from searching for meaning in common
landscape. Her anti-war statement is clear and
focused on those most vulnerable. As our leaders
toy with lives, abuse religion, spread
xenophobia and propagate war out of sight of
cameras, we lose sight of this child and the
millions of others like her throughout the
world. Embedded reporters are kept away from
contact with the human cost, war becomes a sort
of video game, impersonal, shock and awe. The
innocent victims, such as the child in Tears,
are out of sight. Study this child. How can
anyone believe war is an answer?
 Shere
cries. God must surely also cry.
In many of Shere’s paintings the light is in
late day, the shadows long, the light pierces
forests, falls on lonely roads. There is great
transforming beauty in the late day shadows and
light. In the desert, furnace blasted, lifeless
dirt, rock and sand turn to soothing, warm
orange and gold, places where myths and legends
can dance. In the Canadian forest, flattened
layers of green gain depth and richness, turn to
sparkling fairylands. The shadows, which enhance
the view, foreshadow the coming dark, when the
scene, whether desert or forest, blends to
nothing. Are Shere’s artworks the hope found in
light or the nothingness of the dark?
Regardless, they come from the heart of a loving
mother and wife, who hopes against hope for a
better world.
Shere’s love of family is obvious. Her portrait
of her son, Feraz, highlights great technical
ability. The Nest shows a need for each other,
between mother and baby. The love, the comfort
sought, travels in both directions. Sheraz is a
lovely pencil sketch, where, again, Shere uses
light and shadow as in her late day paintings.
Her son brings Shere’s world into the light.
 Homeless
moves from the loving realism of Feraz and
Sheraz to a looser, rougher style. The child’s
eyes are hollow, not beautiful like those in the
artworks of her sons. The accompanying words say
there is “never a hope of escape”.
Juxtapose that with the calm beauty and hope of
new beginnings in the blossoms in Paradise.
Where Homeless indicates all is lost, hopeless,
Paradise says we can follow a trail to the light
of a better day, a better world where the love
rendered in the family portraits can become, we
pray becomes, the focus of the world. If
humanity continues down the road of revenge and
retaliation, a distorted sense of honour, shock
and awe, unholy holy war and preemptive strikes
our future will not be found in Paradise but
rather in the despair of Homeless. Look at each
scene. In which would you rather find yourself?
A future in the light can be found in sharing,
in getting to know each other. In the West, most
people fear a trip to Pakistan, only thinking of
extremists wanting to even kill us. My
brother, whose work has brought him often to
Pakistan and in contact with Pakistani families,
 knows
Pakistan as a place he loves. The Democratic
Republic of Congo is, without doubt, one of the
most unruly places on earth, full of sorrow and
danger. For me, however, it is like Pakistan for
my brother. I know the country, have friends
there. I know where the heart of the people
dwells.
Whether Pakistani, Congolese, Indian or
Canadian, most people want the light, not the
darkness. We are often kept from seeing the
people who suffer and need and want the light.
As we let our spirit wander through the
paintings and words of Shere, I pray that we,
like her, wish for the light. Light found in
getting to know each other and those who suffer.
Thanks to Shere for pointing us to beauty, and
for me best of all, to those who suffer in
innocence. Shere directs to love, to suffering,
to long shadows and despair, but there must
always be hope, hope seen in the late afternoon
sparkling forest air. Believe in the light, not
the darkness. As one person, I fear Shere
possibly believes her wish for light is futile.
However, if one finds hope -- knowledge, steps
beyond ignorance -- and passes it to another and
another…
Ray Dirks, is the curator/director of
the Mennonite Heritage Centre Gallery in
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He is also a
painter, writer and photographer. He has worked
either as an artist or with artists in 30
countries around the world, about half in
Africa. He has had solo exhibitions of his
internationally themed watercolours in Canada,
the US (including at Yale University), Ethiopia
(Goethe Institute) and Cuba (invited by the
National Union of Writers and Artists in Cuba).
In 2002 he was invited to be a research fellow
at Yale University due to his work in Africa.
Editor's Note: Parvin Shere
who studied at Patna University towards
Psychology/Philosophy(1964-1966) is an artist, poet and
musician. She formally developed her talent of
paintings at the University of Manitoba, Canada,
Fine Arts Program (1966-1967 Fine Arts,
University of Manitoba). Her extensive travel
throughout Europe and particularly in developing
countries triggered in her a need to enlighten
her audience about the dualistic nature of this
world.
All pictures in this article are the artwork of
Parvin Shere and have been taken from her web
site
www.parvinshere.com.
Return to previous Page |
