Tale and the Taal of Black

An Exhibition of Paintings by Shabnam Shah

She belongs to the gharana of Nasreen Mohammadi and Jeram Patel, if one is warping and whipping the black and other volumises it, Shabnam squeezes out greys and white sensibilities from the same black.

   Black is the wet otter’s head, lifted.
Black is the rock, plunging in foam.
Black is the gall lying on the bed of the blood.
Black is the earth-globe, one inch under,
An egg of blackness
Where the sun and moon alternate their weathers
To hatch a crow, a black rainbow
Bent in emptiness
Over emptiness
But flying.

-Ted Hughes