Best of Both Worlds: The Art of Summaiya Jilani

Summaiya Jillani lives to create a ‘bang’ through her Pop Art inspired paintings that have such brilliantly vivid colours and are loud and obvious. It is the simplicity and the ‘immortality’ of Pop Art that appeals to her. She wants her work to instantly create such an impact that it stays in the viewer’s memory forever. Her paintings are vibrant, pop, retro, very contemporary; in other words, young and fun!

Jillani’s paintings are not only beautiful to look at, they also present a very interesting theme; that is, the merging of the East and the West. She takes pop icons from the West and gives them an eastern makeover. I was awestruck when I first came across ‘Baar baar dekho, Hazaar baar dekho’; meaning ‘look at it again and again, look at it a thousand times’; a painting of Marylin Monroe given a Pakistani makeover. She has indeed given a new dimension to Pakistani Art.

Jillani says that too much depth of meaning kills the fun in art. However, I believe that her paintings are not only striking and beautiful but that they are also quite meaningful. I feel that she aims to make her art accessible to all by using a simple yet bold style like Pop Art. However, the meaning behind her paintings is only understood by the ones who are willing to dig a little deeper.

In her merging of the East and the West, Jillani presents what her generation thinks about, what it feels, and what it goes through. She says that she feels herself “entangled in the two ---my cultural soil and the world outside.” She has always been fascinated by the rich cultural background of Pakistan; she feels that there is so much more to Pakistan than terrorism or oppression. In her paintings, I see that she is also fascinated by the West and its Pop culture. I feel that her paintings are a result of finding a middle ground between the East and the West.

This is what the young generation in the East, or more specifically, in Pakistan feels like. We cannot help but adore the beautiful truck art and the flippant poetry on auto-rickshaws. At the same time, we can’t help but love the Beatles! I personally feel that Summaiya Jillani is addressing this issue of identity and belonging in her paintings. In my opinion, she paints the struggle, the tussle between the East and the West within the depths of young minds. It seems like she went through the same battle artistically. Jillani looks for a solution to this struggle and hence her paintings have the best of both worlds!

Also in this respect, I believe Pop Art is very appropriate for her subject matter since she is looking for a way to merge two worlds that have always been looked at and treated as quite different. Pop Art is quite simple and accessible to all and as she says, ‘it is not just about one culture or one style. Anything and everything can become part of it owing to its gained popularity, regardless of its style and origin.’ Pop Art indeed speaks to all.