By: Mehak Mubeen Qadri
I am from Srinagar Kashmir. I am perusing Applied Arts from Fine Arts department at Institution of Music and Fine Arts (IMFA) University of Kashmir. And its my final year. As far as an Applied art is concerned; it is one of the departments in Fine Arts that deal with commercial art. So my art deals with commercial purposes like I do advertising, campaigns, logos, photography etc.
But besides my subject I also do paintings like landscapes, portraits, digital art etc and through which i try to express my life and glimpse of my story. In my digital paintings i try to reflect my inner conflicts and contradictions that i face in my life and try to show the struggles of my pathways. But in my works i also try to show the hope that i personally feel whenever i am in contention with life and situations around as living in Kashmir itself is quite stressing but for me i try to never lose hope whatever may happen.
I choose this as my career as i was having an aptitude for this since my childhood. Art and craft was love from the very beginning and best hobby as both in art and craft i was good when I was in school. I have done my schooling from DPS Budgam, so we used have so many extracurricular activities and that was the reason i found myself skilled for this. And my art teacher Ashiq sir helped me to develop interest and appreciated a lot.
Since my 7th class i was the only girl in school who was known for art and craft and was very much achiever in related competitions. So to make it as my profession i was much clear from my 9th class, although my parents were not that much interested or convinced at that time as in my whole family there are so many cousins of mine who are doctors even my brother is perusing MBBS and everyone choose medical or non medical for higher secondary.
I am the only person actually the only girl who opted for arts in higher secondary school and then chooses fine arts as career. So i was criticized earlier when i choose arts in 11th and 12th as everyone thought i was not having an intellect for medical and that’s why i choose easy subject. Actually a Fine art is not exposed to people in Kashmir. But my mother who is professor allowed me to choose when i didn’t change my decision. So she inquired about it to many people and later was convinced.
But the thing is people in Kashmir have no knowledge about this subject and they think it’s easy and that is the big misconception. Easy is nothing in life. As i am in this i sometimes feel it is the most difficult subject as everything you do is your own, you may learn the techniques from college but at the same time whatever you do should be unique and your own. There are new challenges every day. The whole process of your work is your own. The ideas, the medium, the whole execution is all your own.
Art is way of expressing yourself and in my case the things i don’t get words to describe but have images in mind and feeling in heart, i try to put them out. I really feel concerned about the students who have so much talent but have lack of knowledge of fields and opportunities here. Its where Kashmir lacks. The students remain confused till they choose the profession of their parent’s choice.
I wish government would make a certain move to educate people about different career options so that lot of talent in Kashmir will not go in waste. And i would like to tell the students who are still in schools that please make your mind clear from the very beginning, that whatever you want to choose as your career start thinking and when the time will come to choose you people will not be confused. I have seen this as a big problem in Kashmir. And also i wish that the government will think about this art field which has a lot of scope outside but Kashmir is a little behind as it lacks to know about vastness and the versatility of this subject.
Mehak Mubeen Qadri can be reached at mehak.mik222@gmail.com
