Fauzia minallah biography

At a very young age I worked as an editorial cartoonist.
Fauzia is a sculptor, a painter, a graphic designer, a peacebuilder, and the founder of the Funkor Childart Centre in Islamabad.
Fauzia Minallah was born in Quetta in 1962.

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Fauzia Minallah is a pukhtun artist who has very deep and strong emotions about all that goes on in our world. She asks lots of questions about why there can not be peace in the world and what is the legacy that we choose to leave for our children. She tackles and portrays her deep felt emotions through painting, carving and hand built clay sculpture.

Painting since the age of 12, when she was a student of S.S Hyder, (an eminent artist of Peshawar), she thinks of her art as windows to her soul, that reflect her sorrow, joy, anxiety and happiness she feels as a mother and a caring human being.

We first witnessed her artistic skill and wit during the Zia-ul-Haq regime, when The Muslim published her playful and subversive cartoons. According to Fauzia her artistic journey has been very unconventional and very slow. Her parents had recognized the artist in her when she was still very young, but it was much later in life that she learned to enjoy and cherish the joy of being an artist.

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Books for children and young adults > Glimpses into Islamabad's Soul

Book Review by Fiona Torrens-Spence

Author: Fauzia Minallah

In the past travel writers have been dismissive of Islamabad, passing it off as ‘sterile’ and ‘dull’; somewhere to be got through before visiting the real Pakistan. And the local joke ‘Islamabad, twenty minutes from Pakistan’ also belittles the country’s capital city by implying it is essentially foreign to the rest of Pakistan; a soulless, high rise city full of diplomats and other feather bedded foreigners.

As Fauzia Minallah writes, Islamabad and its surrounding villages have both a soul and an immensely long and fascinating story. It is sometimes hard to locate historic sites and harder still to find information about them so I wish that I had been able to read Fauzia Minallah’s book before living in Islamabad as I know I have seen many sites around Islamabad, such as the prehistoric shelter which can be seen from the Kashmir Highway, and entirely missed the story behind them.

I would recommend any visitor to Islamabad to invest in a c

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Poets and their words inspire me. Pakistan's celebrated feminist poets Kishwar Naheed and Fahmida Riaz inspire my work. I love Maya Angelou too. Hermann Hesse's 'Trees: Reflections and Poems' touches my heart. For me trees have a feminine spirit, they represent the life giving and nurturing attributes of mothers. Whenever I visit a new place I search for the ancient trees. I have hugged old trees in 25 countries. In this world, where as a Pakistani the borders are getting thicker and higher, trees are symbols of tolerance and coexistence for me. Wherever I am, a tree never asks me for my passport or my religion and race, but blesses me with its blissful shade on a hot summer day.

My work is varied and I use a certain medium that I love using at a particular time for a specific project. At a very young age I worked as an editorial cartoonist. I find inspiration in the ancient slate cemeteries of my parents hometown in Sirikot, Hazara in the North Western part of Pakistan, but I love digital technology too. I enjoy painting and animating my paintings to tell stories.

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