GulRukh Mehboob
Thursday, April 6, 2023

GulRukh Mehboob is a Ph.D. student majoring in Health Management & Policy and will graduate in 2025. Her mediums include oil on canvas, watercolors, and mixed mediums. The heavy demands of academic life sometimes leave her with little time to do artwork. However, that is when she realizes she needs to return to her inner self, where art provides a process of Catharsis. She has to find time for it! 

Art is important to GulRukh because art is an expression of soul. It has the tremendous ability to bring balance to one's self as well as the world around. It serves as an anchor for her, especially during the chaos. Furthermore, it provides a venue where one has the ability to voice what can not be expressed otherwise. It speaks to one's self as well as to the world and can convey a thousand messages only through a glimpse. 

GulRukh has been experimenting with colors since childhood. Though she was not able to go to art school or to learn professionally, art remained with her, and she kept doing it as a self-learned artist. She started using oil on canvas as her main medium around ten years back. The process accelerated when she started a volunteer community initiative in her home country to provide free schooling to children who are in vulnerable conditions due to their migration from war-torn and conflicted areas from neighboring country Afghanistan and the bordering tribal belt in Pakistan. She started using her artwork to raise funds for her community initiative. That was when she displayed her work at a couple of exhibitions in Pakistan, making her more passionate about her artwork. 

GulRukh’s advice to aspiring artists is, “Do not leave your passions behind. You need art for yourself as much as the art needs you. Keeping going.”

 

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