DO not touch’ signs traditionally instruct gallery-goers that our unworthy, grubby hands should stay in our pockets. It’s refreshing then to meet an artist who not only rejects these warnings but also actively encourages the viewer to touch the art – an approach that has led her to open up her world to the visually impaired.
Speaking from her Enfield studio, abstract artist Furrah Syed tells me: “My art is very heavily textured and layered, so I have always been very enthusiastic about people touching the work, it gives you a whole other way to experience what’s on the canvas.
“I don’t title any of my work, you can rotate it in all four orientations and it’s a very free expression. It led me to think what would it be like if somebody couldn’t see it but felt it, what would their impression be?”
Furrah, who grew up in Enfield and now lives in Palmers Green with her husband and nine-year-old daughter, began developing a workshop exploring textures as varied as sand, papier-mache and rice on the canvas, while also drawing on principles of pranic healing.
“Pranic healing heals by taking negative energy away and healing with positive energy and more advance courses deal with healing with colours. That led me to think, why can’t we do that with paint?”
Called ‘colour recognition’, the practice involves feeling the energy generated from either hot or cold colours with the palm of your hands (I tried it, it works!).
“If you are speaking to somebody who has never seen red or white before and telling them they can feel them, in the very least it blows them away, and it can be very emotionally overwhelming.”
Working with various international charities, Furrah, an ambassador for The Sage Foundation, has taken her workshop to India, Hong Kong and Australia, as well as here in the UK, where she is working with the RNIB, Linden Lodge, a specialist sensory and physical college in Wimbledon and West Grove Primary School in Southgate.
“I have worked with children as young as five to adults over 60, and both sighted and visually impaired people and the reaction has been fantastic,” she smiles.
Having studied fine art and textiles at school, then sciences at degree level, before a career in marketing and finance, Furrah came back to art “for pleasure” while living in India four years ago.
Now a respected international artist, Furrah manages to find time in-between being a mother, her charity work and holding free workshops to return to the passion that started it all, and next week her new exhibition, Mystical Abstracts, will open at Burgh House & Hampstead House.
“The collection is inspired by my travels, nature and the colour combinations in my head. I don’t get that feeling of relief until I have got it all on a canvas, it’s like its bursting out.”
Painting with “complete abandon”, Furrah “slaps on layers of acrylic” to stunning effect, with vibrant blues and whites jumping out as they catch the light and each rotation of the canvas bringing a new impression.
“I have been really blessed and I really enjoy people’s reaction to the work. One particular piece I will be showing has moved people to tears, but that’s not for sale, I can’t part with it,” she laughs.
Mystical Abstracts runs at Burgh House & Hampstead Museum, New End Square, Hampstead, from Wednesday, November 25 to Sunday, November 2
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