User:Simone G.Malik Artist/sandbox/Simone G.Malik

--A BRADFORD artist whose painting of the drowned Syrian boy washed up on a Turkish beach raised more than £1,000 for the Syrian Refugee charity, has three more paintings hanging in a Bradford restaurant.

Simone Malik, of East Bowling, a former health officer with the NHS, started painting professionally two years ago after being made redundant.

Her first major painting, that of the Syrian boy who touched the hearts of people around the world, sold at auction and she donated all the proceeds to charity.

Since then Miss Malik, who is related to former One Direction singer Zayn Malik - his grandfather is her first cousin, has been building her portfolio including one commissioned for former Bradford West MP George Galloway, and others of Simon Cowell and Imran Khan.

She has just completed a commission of three oil on canvas paintings of the founders of Pakistan for the Jinnah Restaurant, in Leeds Road.

"I am happy with the end result, although it was a challenging commission, as these are historic figures and there is limited availability on images available to paint from. Ideally, an artist requires at least one live sitting or meeting with the figure/person to be painted; which was impossible in this case."

The portraits are of Dr Allama Iqbal, Fatima Jinnah and Mohammed Ali Jinnah. They were completed using the advanced Alla prime painting technique and took a total of two months for all three to be completed.

Farrukh Iqbal, manager of the Jinnah restaurant, said he was delighted with the pieces of art.

http://m.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/14624657.Artist_captures_founders_of_Pakistan_on_canvas/

http://www.notjusthockney.info/malik-simone/

https://www.asianexpress.co.uk/2016/03/haunting-portrait-of-drowned-refugee-raises-a-four-figure-sum-for-charity/