Bringing to light the darkness

How many artists do we know who have managed to retain their creativity while being subject to routine torture in prisons? Not many is the likely answer. Naushad Waheed, well-known Maldivian artist is one such person.

He has been in and out of prison eight times in the past 15 years, starting in 1990 for periods ranging from a few months to several years. He has been kept in solitary confinement, subject to regular beatings and torture but through it all, kept his fighting spirit and creativity alive and re-created on canvas the dark images that were a routine occurrence in his prison days.

In Colombo briefly to get medical treatment after getting a temporary release from house arrest last month, he spoke to The Sunday Times saying it was his faith in God that kept him going through all those long, dark days.

In his drawings, the 44-year-old artist depicts graphically the methods of torture that people were subject to in prison in the Maldives some of which he personally experienced.
And amazingly, some of the paintings were done while he was in prison. “I managed to have canvas and colour smuggled into the cells through my contacts in prison and managed to paint when I was not being watched. The other prisoners helped me by shielding me,” Naushad said. The same way he smuggled the blank canvases into prison; he also smuggled them out of prison and kept them in safe places.

Naushad’s wife Aishath, a primary school teacher, was expecting their first baby in late 1990 when he was taken prisoner for drawing a political cartoon in a public weekly magazine. He spent almost three years in prison and under house arrest. Since then he has been in and out of prison and his future is uncertain even today.

“I am not a politician. I am an artist. But there is no freedom of expression so artists are also stifled,” he said.

Naushad developed his love of art as a schoolboy under the supervision of his art master but it was after meeting Sir Noonu Thaa Ahamed Didi , a Maldivian master artist that his interest grew. Now art has become a way for him to expose to the world the sordid happenings inside the prison cells in the Maldives.

Naushad has won several national and international awards including the National Art Award in his country and exhibited his work in Maldives as well as in Bangladesh. He hopes to have an exhibition in Sri Lanka soon.

“I hope to exhibit some of my prison art as well as abstract works,” he said.

Naushad has also founded his own academy of art called the Naushad Academy of Fine Arts, a relatively informal school for artists as well as younger students.