Hafsa Murtaza, An Islamic Garden in my Dining Room, 2024
Oil on canvas.
24 in x 40 in
This painting An Islamic Garden in my Dining Room reimagines my home dining table, windows and doors as an Islamic garden with iwans–three-walled rooms with an arched opening looking out to a garden–reflective pools, Arabic Salsabil fountains, and a myriad of Canadian native flowers peppered with vegetables and tropical Canna. The vibrant, saturated colours and an all-over composition emphasize the landscape's fantastical nature while maintaining symmetry to allude to Persian and Mughal chahr-bagh quadrangle garden traditions. Water is integral to all Islamic gardens for irrigating, providing drinking water and natural cooling and allowing space for contemplation. In Arabic gardens, water symbolically connects interior realms with the exterior through channels and fountains, thereby influencing the painting's play on weaving the inside with the outside and dismantling topographical and cultural distinction between East and West.