User:FAKEHA TARANNUM

Architecture is not the mainstay of Tarannum's work, but the elements she derives from the discipline instill confidence into her composition. For one, they spell out that there's a design behind the hurly burly of paints. The break up of space is by no means an accident, you can discern. However, the whiff of architecture in the rich tapestry of colours is just one of the influences on Tarannum. Poetry is another, and perhaps a more potent stimulant. Faiz and Rumi and Shakespeare, "they add to my confidence," she confides, "for, the poets unravel the mystery that is the thoughts of people!" Poems and stories would colour the existence of Tarannum, born in a middle class UP family of four brothers and sisters. The businessman's household did not offer a creative environment for the budding artist, but before she realised it, Tarannum was inspired to write her heart out. Short stories and poems flew out of her pen, until she went to the Aligarh Muslim University and picked up the brush. "It is there that I realised why I wanted to paint: I wasn't good for anything else!" she states bluntly. Then she adds: "It took me years to understand that I cannot live without painting. For, I try to understand life through painting." It's not a coincidence that poetry and painting - the two passions in Tar annum’s life - are both abstract in nature. Clearly all her works are an abstract of thoughts, daily experiences, images and moods. Sometimes they may be evocative, sometimes representational; on occasion you might even find them explicit. As Tarannum digs into her memory, images swell up in her mind. "Unusual, seemingly unfamiliar marks and shapes that occur in my work could be interpretative of my thought. I select and then exaggerate or simplify the forms suggested by the world around me," she analyses her own ex-pressions. More often than not, Tarannum makes no effort to represent a subject matter. Sometimes she applies paint with large brushes, sometimes she lets it drip, and at times she even throws it onto the canvas. The aim, consciously or otherwise, is to leave a trace of her own memory in the recollection of her viewer. Put one stroke that will speak volumes. Or smear colour to mute a communication. Start with one colour, that will dictate the rest of the palette, perhaps the entire composition. Resemblance to reality? None. Meaning? Find your own. But why look for one? - Tarannum poses. Is there really a need to go beyond the visual? - You ask yourself. "Today, I understand Gaitonde better, because I understand that there does not have to be any meaning in art. Art itself gives meaning to life." Profound it may sound, but at the end of the day it simply urges you to soak in the experience the artist set out to translate into colour. Often an aural stimulant realises itself through the lines. The brush transforms a chiaroscuro of moods into a visual chimera. "I don't know what I'm going to paint. All I know is that I aim at one strong composition." The juxtaposition of pigments, of strokes, of voids, of brushwork - through all this, the one thing she does is create a resonance.