KARACHI: Ocean Art Galleries hosted a solo show of Lubna Jehangir titled as “Seven Queens (saat-a-soor-myoon)” which is based on Bhittai’s seven queens (seven heroic women). These seven heroic women known as (saat-a-soor-myoon) in local language Sindhi are referred to seven female characters that appear in Shah Abdul Lateef Bhittai’s historic magazine Shah Jo Risalo. These seven female characters, which the poet uses to convey his poetic message. These seven royal ladies have remained as iconic characters in the history of Sindh for their bravery, passion, loyalty, commitment, character and strength. All these seven royal ladies had tragic romantic tales. These romantic tales are often referred as 01) umar-marvi, 02) mommal-rano, 03) sohni-mehar(mahiwal), 04) lilan-chanesar, 05) noori-jam tamachi 06) sassui-punhoon and 07) sorath-rai-diyach.
Lubna Jehangir showcases ‘saat-a-soor-myoon’ which can be loosely be translates as seven heroines. She take inspiration modern day surmi’s (heroines) Fahmida Riaz and Asma Jehanger who are referred as 8th and 9th surmi (heroine) respectively. This reference tempted Lubna Jehangir to dig out about original seven. Lubna Jehangir said; “an article triggered my quest to discover more about the seven heroines (Queens) of Sindh. I was already familiar with some of these folklores, yet others were totally new for me. The saat-a-soor-myoon fascinated me to the extent that not only did it change my perspective of these folk tales, but they also send me on a journey of exploring the subject further. In this solo show / exhibition I share a body of twenty-eight painting inspired by ‘saat-a-soor-myoon’. In this body of work, four paintings are dedicated to each surmi, which represent four stage of life of each surmi. These four stages are i) ‘The Women’, ii) ‘spell-bound’, iii) ‘Dhamal’ and iv) ‘She Lives On’.
Lubna Jehangir daughter of an electronic engineer is eldest among four siblings of typically middle-class family that is known to combine and hold dear both the rather contrasting progressive and conservative values. With five solo shows and 13 group shows to her credit Lubna Jehangir learned basics of arts and graphic design from teachers like Anna Molka, Zulqarnain Haider, Zafarullah and Khalid Saeed while completing her Master’s in Graphic Designs from the Punjab University in 1987. During her formative years she drew inspiration from local geniuses of Sadequen, Shakir Ali, Colin David and the western masters such as Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Van Goh, Dali, Piccaso, Monet, Gustav Klimt, Warhol and many more. News Desk
