Rabiya Choudhry is a visual artist based in Edinburgh. Her paintings vary from miniatures to large scale canvases and murals and her practice also includes painted sculptures, fabrics and text-based artworks. She describes her work as exploring ‘… the complicated coupling of eastern and western cultures in richly vibrant portrayals of the different autobiographical factors in my life.’ Her work is playful but also deeply personal, complex and political: ‘Painting for me is about taking painful experiences and exploring them through art. I have explored themes such as suicide, depression, shame, anxiety, guilt and fear, love and loss… My works are joyous, demented expressions of these themes, mirroring the worlds we experience both outside and within.’

Rabiya is one of 11 artists based in Scotland taking part in the Crisis Residency Programme, 2020/21. The artist had her first solo show at Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, in 2018 and, as lockdown began, was working on a new series of paintings for a group exhibition as part of Glasgow International. This, Rabiya’s first residency, will offer the time to reflect on the work she has produced over the past few years and to reconsider and explore ideas for future projects within the context of the current crisis.

Image: Rabiya Choudhry, ‘Prayers for Moona’, 2018, 290mm x 230mm, acrylic on card (photography, Matthew Arthur Williams)