Spatial Identity
Artist: Natasha Shoro
By Fatima S. Khan
Paintings
by Natasha Shoro
As more and more immigrants
immerse themselves in the western landscape, the beautiful
melding of cultures is bound to be visible, in almost every
fold of life. The evolution of American style in the coming
years with blending of diverse cultures will be far more
significant than ever before.
First generation Easterners endowed with their rich cultural
heritage will spill their memories, experiences, and even
inventions, like precious gems into the vast western landscape
of the United States. The unburdening of treasures in form
of writing, painting, sculpture, costumes, inventions medical
and scientific, graphic design and even politics thus bringing
a significant evolution in an American style, for time is
yet to reveal the positive contributions of the first generation
Pakistanis in the United States.
Natasha Shoro surely capsulate the rich cultural heritage
of her ancestors from Pakistan and generously splurges her
canvas with the sumptuous memories of the past into a vast
aerial landscape of Southern California views as anyone
of us may have seen peering from the airplane windows.
She has translates her childhood memories of lavish weddings
and celebrations, weaving the Southern California with precious
gems, the endless freeways are an interesting web of design
made of strings of rubies and pearls loses itself in the
crevices of hills and mountains.
An amazing union of art and industry with an eye of the
basics and the complexities of design abstraction, she has
achieved harmonious proportions. Her style is naturally
persuasive aiming for harmony, clarity and modernism. She
most definitely achieves the refinement and sophistication
every step of the way rather than juxtaposing and convoluting.
Her work resembles that of Jackson Pollock he was an abstract
expressionist and an influential American painter born in
1912. Mexican Muralists influenced his early representational
works, and he used rural American subject matter.
Natasha meticulously uses several forms of mixed media,
to portray the highs and lows of the Southern California
landscape, than she overlaps them with fine threads of gold.
She uses the mixed media, applying paints and acrylics to
attain a certain texture, each technique takes several months
to perfect, using variation of shades of the same color
in white and beige, gold and silver she has brilliantly
achieved her goals.
It is in the surface treatments, textured and dented rather
than statically detailed, using the abstract design qualities
rather than obscuring with purely ornamental. Her textures
speak out for themselves, mountains, hills, foliage, automobiles,
freeway grids, clouds and water, each element brilliantly
translates into rich textiles of gold lam`e, embellishments
and endless chains of precious stones.
There is the participation of the sky and earth, the feminine
elegance of gold filigree and the luster of gems are a new
conception giving a rhythmic style and an intoxicating freedom,
which is highly original. She allows luxury to have no other
purpose but simplicity, which she portrays remarkably in
her skillful techniques that have evolved over time. Almost
lyrical the childhood memories taking shape of an aerial
Southern California view one clear night, like sparkling
jewels and precious gems to be gathered in one breath.
Gold has always been a most valued metal; in the Eastern
part of the world, used widely in dowries as a form of safety
net however, in the West most commonly in California, known
as the Golden State, explorers have ventured here in search
of Gold mines. Natasha has covered her landscape with threads
of fine gold which is more like a palm leaf, once again
a plant that is found in the Eastern regions as well as
in the warmer climate of Southern California. In her artwork,
she is desperately finding the commonalities and the familiarities
between the place of her ancestors and the place where she
resides with her husband and three children.
She is giving her Inner Child a voice by ingeniously weaving
the richness of Eastern memories over the vast Southern
California Landscape, the gold lam`e the opulence of the
fabrics and jewels seen in childhood, the luxurious textures,
intricately woven are fragments of life’s images.
Art is center stage in her life ------she communicates through
art, her strokes have a movement, you feel a sense of constant
change, looking for something meaningful in the senseless
stretch of land, and she is breaking barriers formulating
a style by reaching deep into her roots. Her style is fluid
some of the work depicts ring like waves more beautiful
than necklaces. Some colors are radiant others are subdued,
there is clarity of reason, sense of spare and minimal as
well.
The adornment is harmonious, thirsting for an authentic
sense of style. The work is two-dimensional rather than
filled with perspectives, highlights and shadows.
It is abstract and linear much like her Eastern roots a
far distance from the figurative and the painterly works.
They are cool, direct, and plain spoken as it appeals to
the senses.
Natasha has a vast teaching experience, she presently teaches
at the Orange County Performing Arts Center-Visual Artist
for “Arts Teach”- Artist in Residence K-12.
She has also been a faculty member at various Southern California
Universities, also an Instructor at the Irvine Fine Arts
Center. Her artwork was exhibited since 1990 throughout
the world at renowned galleries. In January 2006, she had
an exhibition at the Chawkandi Art Gallery in Karachi Pakistan.
She has participated in several community services including
the Pacific Asia Museum and the Laguna Art Center.
At the Newport Beach Central Library, eight of her works
are on display called
“Spatial Identity” through February 28, 2007
sponsored by
SCAPE
2859 East Coast Highway,
Corona Del Mar, Ca.92625 Tel: 949-723-3407
www.scapesite.com
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