Inspired by love: ‘Life, emotions are ambiguous like black’

Solo exhibition of paintings by Sarah Mumtaz kicks off.

LAHORE: Love is the new Black, a solo show of paintings by Sarah Mumtaz started at Taseer Art Gallery on Monday.

Twenty paintings will be on display until September 27.

“My work is about my thought process. Everyday I wake up to discover some unexplored facets of my mind,” Mumtaz told The Express Tribune.

“A new me is born every passing day but for this new ‘me’ to be born some other facet has to perish.”

She said the thought process could be comprehensible or inexplicable. She said some changes were not easy to deal with. They might be tedious and painful even, she said.

“They leave you with an empty feeling. Loneliness is not necessarily a negative state.

It can be beautiful in a bittersweet way. One can benefit from loneliness by evolving as an individual. Like nature a caterpillar develops wings after a period of solitary hibernation.”

Mumtaz said the second most important source of inspiration for her work was love.

Mumtaz uses facets of her mind as the subject for her work. PHOTO: HASSAN NAQVI

“I use love as a muse for my art. I toy with the emotion in my head. I think I need to fall in love with someone to get ideas for my work,” said Mumtaz. She said when there was not enough to see one was forced to imagine something. This made every person and every shape more mysterious.

“Life and emotions are ambiguous like the colour black. I like my work to have the same aura of ambiguity as love as dark as the night,” said Mumtaz.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 23^rd, 2014.