Grieving figures in Persian manuscript paintings are rare but when depicted they are shown beating their chests in distress such as in a famous painting by Bihzad that narrates the despair of a son leading his father's mourning procession. Distraught, he lays his bare chest open or attempts to tear his clothes apart. An iconic scene that often appears in the Shahnama is that of a devastated Rustam, wailing and tearing his shirt as soon as he realizes that he has unknowingly killed his own son. In Mughal paintings, it is the spectators that sometimes animate the composition with their gesticulating hands or hunched shoulders even though the focal point is often the tragic death of a sovereign or a saint such as a painting documenting the hanging of Mansur Al-Hallaj. Either way the expression of grief is always sensory in that we observe their gestures and use our imagination to “hear” their lamentation so that it resonates with us. Stylistically, miniature paintings may represent imaginal landscapes but such paintings also carry indexical value in that they are rooted in the narration of everyday life.

Munibah Nooresehr's understanding of formal concepts and space is rooted firmly in the tradition and history of Indo Persian miniature painting but the sensory experience of grief in her series titled "Zinda Dargor" (Buried Alive) is not only unique in its expression but also negates this indexical value traditionally accorded to many miniature paintings. It thrusts the viewer headlong into a dystopian world of grim but surreal landscapes that comprise the human psyche. The dream-like settings are animated by exquisitely rendered borders that glitter with gold and frame the presence of extraordinarily tall, tree-like female figures in hooded robes who seem to billow and sprout obstinately from the bare ground or remain hunched or crouched in dejection. The mood is solemn with little respite but it is trumped by effortless command over the formal aspects and the execution of a haunting pathos that haunts these large format paintings.

A general setting of most of the paintings is that of a parched landscape, in some works it is dominated by withered trees that have stood the test of time. Even the stormy waters, small shrubs and rough-hewn rocks seem inconsequential in relation to the pervasive presence of the gnarled clusters of roots in paintings such as "Qafas Shaad Baad" (Encaged Ever After), "Fasl-e-Qaza 2" (Reaping Death) and "Muni Van Winkle". Set in somber hues of ochre, rust, brown and grey, the sepia palette of Nooresehr's paintings is reminiscent of an old film replaying iterations of archetypal images culled from fragments of the tortured and conflicted unconscious: the experience of being "Buried Alive" (Zinda Dargor) transforms into a landscape of metaphors overlaid by the experience of grieving.

The physical representation of grieving in paintings such as "Rehm Be Rehm" (The Brutal Womb), "My Ghost and I" and "Fasl-e-Qaza 1" can be interpreted as being analogous of a state that appears to be a lifeless and unending experience of stasis where the figures remain shackled and suspended both literally and metaphorically. In "Rehm Be Rehm" the entrapment of the female figure is rendered absolute when the umbilical cord, which is a source of nourishment and growth is replaced by twisted tendrils of dried roots that snake their way into the earth and ensnare a hapless female figure huddled in a fetal position. The aestheticization of this violence through the use of decorative motifs is a common trope used by many miniature painters; in many of Nooresehr's works the excessive use of densely illuminated patterns and gold which is traditionally meant to represent spiritual glory becomes a misnomer; its presence is either stifling or it struggles valiantly against the all-encompassing existential dread that emanates from a distinct bleakness in these paintings. The dense networks of interlacing patterns, sweeping arabesques and tendrils of Persian clouds that frame and contain the narrative help amplify the contradiction in this juxtaposition. Is this an outpouring of grief for what has been lost or is this an exploration of the interiority of the self as it struggles with its containment?

Nooresehr contends that after her graduation from NCA in 1994 her personal life has been an embodiment of these struggles and her works are a manifestation of this journey towards enlightenment. The narrative in these paintings relays her vulnerabilities and an internal battle with what she calls the containment of her potential. Nooresehr explains that she left Pakistan immediately after marriage at a young age and lived in Saudi Arabia. She recounts that she emerged from her myopic understanding of culture, society and religion when she finally shifted to Dubai and embraced its cosmopolitanism. Nooresehr also commenced painting the "Zinda Dargor" series as a celebration of her emancipation from this dark period in this time. Ironically the content relays her lamentation about the loss of creativity and intellectual stagnation that sums up those years. The regret Nooresehr felt where a productive period in her life was wasted is evident in her narration of these events and forms the crux of much of her ideation. Paintings like "Twisted Faith" and "My Ghost and I", works that depict strife through a peculiar "doubling" of the main figure could possibly allude to landscapes of dialogue and contention for metaphorical representation of the human psyche. For instance, in "Twisted Faith" one can sense an antagonism between the figure robed in vivid yellow and the figure shrouded in darkness as opposed to "My Ghost and I" where there is a cautious mirroring of the self, a sort of tentative reconciliation between the self and its unconscious perhaps? Even the lyrical phrases that comprise of Nooresehr's titles such as "Qafas Shaad Baad" "Encaged Ever After" and Fasl-e-Qaza 1, 2"(Reaping Death) are tinged with references to the loss of time, intellectual death and inertia.

The process of her making and the dates of completion underneath Nooresehr's works are emblematic of a creative struggle that was punctuated with spurts of growth and learning. Nooresehr returned to live in Islamabad where she studied calligraphy, the making and application of shell gold and illumination under renowned master calligrapher Rasheed Butt. Interestingly her elaborate borders were a sort of addendum made to the paintings after this rigorous training but they emerge as a testament to her tenacity and skill. The borders blur the inner and outer worlds; they coalesce and absorb figures, illumination and even anthropomorphic faces with effortless ease.

Arguably, Nooresehr's body of work is a peculiar case study. At NCA she was awarded the Haji Sharif Award for Miniature Painting amongst other awards and graduated with Distinction. She would have mingled with stalwarts such as Shahzia Sikander, Ambreen Butt and Nusra Latif to name a few. These artists amongst many others went on to deconstruct the syntax and iconography of miniature painting and embraced the rise of "neo miniature" which dovetailed with the global art world's newfound discovery of what was envisaged as Pakistan's exciting and emergent contemporary art scene in a post 9/11 scenario. In contrast, Munibah Nooresehr has chosen a path that is diametrically opposed to the tenor of the "contemporariness" that became visible then and has since burgeoned in the commercial art market. She has emerged after a long hiatus with a genre and style that could easily be disparaged by many, a challenge that she has had to grapple with ever since her debut in the Pakistani art scene. Characterized by the illustrative and straitjacketed by what could be proclaimed trite or "prescriptive", namely decorative borders, stylized figuration and designed spaces (all pejorative terms for “dated”), this criticism is relative; Nooresehr has yet to “acclimatize.” In a commodity driven art world that is wont to eventually assigning golden cages to most artists and buttressing them with orientalist trappings and so is capricious at best, it could easily be “rebranded” or marketed as being evocative of legacy and lineage borne of a rigorous ustad-shagird system that has defined South Asian pedagogical practices for centuries. Nooresehr's greatest strength is the desire to debate and question what will endure in a world saturated by images: the content of her work is still laced with artistic subjectivities borne of individual experience and angst, her immaculate skill is something to watch out for and she has the most ardent and hungry desire to make up for lost time and savour every experience as she does that. Arguably, the presence of her works in contemporary art galleries reignites heated debates that had dissipated with time and harken back to the mid-2000s or possibly much earlier. At the time, a polemic of art making was constructed in the shadow of the politics of 9/11; the discourse that was generated may have unfairly pitted legacies, unwittingly "othered" artistic strategies that were intertwined with a natural, tactical response to their time whilst misconstruing the scope of their respective evolution, contribution and complexity. More than two decades down the lane, the lingua franca in today's postmodern "anything goes" mainstream art world- now relayed through the razzmatazz and a semi democratization of the art world though social media- has undergone significant change. With buzzwords like postcolonial, memory, intergenerational trauma, intersectionality, craft practices, counter narratives and diversity being bandied about loudly and aggressively outside of what were once peripheries, interstices and fringes of art worlds coupled with messy debates pertaining to repatriation and revisiting of museum histories, there may be enough to get a foothold. Nooresehr has just commenced her journey, her productivity will determine how quickly she navigates and maps her evolution but she hopes this chatter will grow so that the "winds of change"- as she so eloquently put it- can commence.