Amma

Noreen about the expo:

In my work I portray people with a bicultural identity. These people struggle with their identity just like me. These are usually portraits of people close to me. In these works, there is a dividing line between liberal Dutch Selma and traditional Pakistani Amma (Amma means grandmother in Urdu). My grandmother ‘Amma’ is Pakistani and my sister: Selma is half Dutch and half Pakistani. In my work I express my love for them and at the same time the beauty of and my fascination for the bi-cultural Dutch and Pakistani identity. Selma wears a traditional salwar kameez (Pakistani dress) and jewelery. Under the portrait of my grandmother I have expressed my feelings for her in Urdu calligraphy (Pakistani poetry language). The work is inspired by a poem by a Pakistani poet named…(poet name). I see both Amma and Selma as beautiful powerful women.

Why does a cultural background fascinate me so much? That is a journey that I am going through, through drawing.

Noreen about herself: ” I feel liberal and free, but at the same time conservative and religious. Religious, yet a
sinner. In my work I explore what it means to navigate back and forth between my Pakistani and Dutch upbringing. Am I a good Muslim or a liberal Dutch artist? Or could I be both? Being a product of an unhappy marriage of parents who culturally and morally clash with each other in various ways has questioned the meaning and purpose of my own identity.

Drawing portraits has always been a therapy to me. An escape from a bitter-sweet household. To find
‘me’. Through drawing I find what Islam means to me. A totally different approach to how I
have traditionally been thaught Islam by my mother. Drawing is my Islam.
The misunderstandings, abuse, deep sadness, cultural clashes and painful love between my
parents as well as the disapproval of pursuing the arts in the beginning stages of my drawing
career had suppressed within me a fire of anger and liberating energy. To finally let it all out
and give it my all.

The experimentation with different mixed media drawing techniques is a metaphor to truly
finding who I am. I could not fulfil my duty to become the good Muslim women my mother
wanted for me, neither could I make a career in the sciences as my father wanted for me.
But maybe, just maybe I could become the contemporary drawing artist I have always
yearned to become? And then, what role does Islam play in all this?”