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Irum Rahat

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Irum Rahat’s painting practice is fundamentally anchored in the praxis of pictorial expression. She explores the notion of mundanity and its multifaceted reverberations in a culturally and personally significant way. She graduated from National College of Arts, Lahore with a Bachelors in Fine Art (2019) and then moved to London to pursue a Masters in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins (2021). She has been part of significant shows including 'This Is Not A Party' (2022), 'MERCH' (2022), and 'Transparent Ritual' at the Lethaby Gallery (2023) that encapsulate her evolving practice.

Irum Rahat’s painting practice is fundamentally anchored in the praxis of pictorial expression. S...

Born and raised in Lahore, Pakistan, Irum Rahat’s practice revolves around paintings of domestic spaces occupied by women, whilst disrupting capitalistic and patriarchal frameworks of the white male adventure narrative. She is exploring her ideas of the familial and familiar through her fascination with expressive mark making and bold use of colour, creating a dynamic visual vocabulary that speaks to the emotional complexity of her subject matter. Through her paintings, she reflects on intimacy, femininity, memory, space and building her own personal adventure narrative while working in London.

Final work

Oil painting of two figures, a male figure at the back, a female figure at the front sitting on a sofa.

Prime time dinner for six, Oil on canvas, 220 x 150 cm, 2023.

Oil painting of a female figure standing in a room at a distance, looked at through a door frame.

8:41 pm, Oil on canvas, 220 x 150 cm, 2023.

Oil painting of a female figure standing against a wall, looking at her hands or something in them.

Untitled, Oil on linen, 95 x 79 cm, 2022.

Research and process

  • Oil painting of a kitchen space on a pink coloured ground on a lose surface.
  • Oil painting of hands on a green coloured ground.
  • Oil painting of a dinner table scene with plates of food and a wine bottle and glass.
  • Printmaking as part of the process of photographs collected as references. A female figure moving through a garden at night time.
  • Printmaking as part of the process of photographs collected as references. Dog in a garden.
  • Printmaking as part of the process of photographs collected as references. A female figure in a domestic space moving towards the viewer.

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Born and raised in Lahore, Pakistan, Irum Rahat’s practice revolves around paintings of domestic spaces occupied by women, whilst disrupting capitalistic and patriarchal frameworks of the white male adventure narrative. She is exploring her ideas of the familial and familiar t...

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