Saba- Indian Painter


		"Saba Hasan uses scripts of letters as part of her work to bring into relief autobiographical details and to juxtapose these with contemporary issues that are cultural and political in nature. She consistently questions the authenticity of historical narratives and how crucial personal histories become in the reading of history."
		Extract from Islamic Art, The Past and Modern by Nuzhat Kazmi 2010

		"Suffice to say that she has by now a mastery of art craft…Saba brings lived history to our doorstep but only as a memorable experience. Here, in other words, is a corpus of work, which even as it may disturb the eye, equally provides a cultural anchor. Via her genre, we certainly become conscious as to how time and life can at once be multiple -made of regret, and thankfulness."
		Extract from the book, Dus Mahavidyas /Ten Creative Forces by Keshav Malik 2008

Home About Saba Works Galleries Contact		"The weathered aging quality of the surface of Saba’s paintings is a result of layering that often takes at least three months. Each painting has a history of years of experience where the artist has experimented with mixing and layering waiting, drying. The brilliance lies in how spontaneous it all appears when the works finally reach completion. The seared text enmeshed with hemp threads evokes a sense of conflict and somewhere the actual burning of cities and the intention of omitting certain cultures comes through in the work. The Urdu text has evolved beyond the traditional Bismillah category of calligraphy and surfaced as both ornament and witness to her cultural moorings and social concerns. Urdu is an Indian language not like Arabic and Muslims she is referring to are an integral part of Indian culture. Her reference to Urdu is not an attempt to collapse borders but to speak from the viewpoint of an insider."
		Georgina Maddox 2007

		“Saba Hasan’s works reflect the evolution of one of the most powerful trends of our art during the national movement- its syncretic stream. It was this stream that gave us artists like F.N. Souza, M.F. Husain, Tyeb Mehta, S.H. Raza, Chitta Prasad, Zainul Abedin, Somenath Hore, J. Swaminathan and Paritosh Sen, to name only a few. The young painter’s father, Zaiul Hasan was one of the founders of the newspaper Patriot, so she is an organic product of this tradition and able to carry it forward without being stilted. The ease with which she has transformed it’s formal tenets without losing their essence reflects her quality of being able to change her expression with the changing expectations of time without compromising on its content. In her art, I find the unbroken thread of our Ganga- Yamuni culture that gave us the Hindvi that Amir Khusro loved or the Indo – saracenic style of architecture of the Sultanate, which then found expression of a different sort in Mughal and Indo- colonial architecture, in fact, it is no accident that her earlier work had a strong architectural component in it. Her latest work, however, breaks away from the formal structure of architecture and is closer to the ‘art informel,’ but with a component of the written word in Urdu, the language that shares common ground with Hindi and is also the vehicle of the most powerful trends of our progressive and revolutionary poetry of the national movement and of Bhagat Singh’s Inquilab Zindabad.”
		Suneet Chopra 2006

		"Saba Hasan's recent work has the promise of a sojourn that reflects the finest idioms of what one could call a floating reverie in the tide of times. This is Saba in the odyssey of her inner quest that probes the mysteries of a moody lyricism. Textural terrain and the hint of a tenuous script both weave into the inner recesses to bring out a series of resonant renditions that echo the visual vibrations of a time in eternity. She recalls the forms and principles of modernism which have been used by her to sway the pendulum of thought. Modernism for Saba tends toward sleek shapes, avoids decoration, exploring textural nuances and techniques, all of which give it the coherent syntax. Here is abstraction at its restrained best, a visual treat for tired eyes. "
		Uma Nair 2006

		"For Saba the calm virtues of her craft are the main points of departure. Free, and yet deliberate design; fine, rich but an exceptionally reserved off- white colour; the use of nails, scripts or other humbling or elevated accessories in the body of each composition; and a textured surface that shows an equal variety and inventiveness. The precise character, the texture, size, tone direction and rhythm of each ragged touch is her emphatic preoccupation...there is double meaning in the artist's genre, several nuances in her marks on plaster and the work when at its best is palpably alive. Needless to say that this order of work demands a trained viewer's eye to release its true flavour."
		Keshav Malik 2005

		"The regular unison of figurative drawing and painting of abstractions enlivens Saba’s credibility as an artist busting the myth that artists who choose to work in abstract can not capture recognizable reality. Latent traces if identity, legacies of the past, the family drawn into the vortex of the freedom struggle, emerged as her footholds”
		Aruna Bhowmick 2005

		"Saba imbued her works, replete with multiple significations with a disquieting open-endedness. She looked at shabda or lafz (word) as a repository of various voices, giving it roop (form), and highlighting its visuality amidst other images and surface textures. Saba's mixed media works on wasli paper and canvas used material like multani mitti, printed paper, rope and nails. She made a judicious use of impasto to give the paintings a beguiling three-dimensionality. Most of these works framed a political commentary on the use and abuse of cultural imagery. Whirling dervishes, burnt manuscripts and floating boats, referred to forced displacement and the brutal silencing of voices."
		Art India 2005

		"The unseen art of Islam, the words of peace, compassion and humanism in Urdu spill on Saba Hasan's white-soaked, ragged edged , mixed media artworks...she invades canvases with iron nails, twists bristle and covers them with gently smudged calligraphy. Bristling with militancy and calm, Hasan's thought provoking series is a must-see."
		Outlook 2005

		“Saba has the courage to experiment and change with passage of time, in response to her experience. This relates not only to creativity and innovation but also to the realization of the unchanging fundamental truth.”
		Prof P N Mago 2002

		"Independent, individualistic and unflappably experimental, Saba paints what she believes in. Emotions are delicate and indelible, oscillating between the serenity and strain of city life. For lovers of the abstract there is indeed a spiritual experience that unravels a depth of intensity which celebrates the freedom of the artists soul and the philosophy of life.”
		Uma Nair 2002

		“Saba expresses the duality of life in the city with abstract forms and colours meshing in a maze, the sense of closed spaces, of almost intimate proximity. Yet, the opposites, contrasts, if you will, not only co-exist, they are a harmony.”
		Ratnottama Sengupta 2002

		"It is no exaggeration to say that Saba Hasan is one of the most dynamic artists to have come our way for a long time"
		Dyaneshwar Nadkami 1999