Diplomat displays artwork at east-end gallery

Naela Chohan, who has been posted in Ottawa since 2006 – alongside her husband, the former high commissioner Musa Javed Chohan, who retired last year – is the creative mind behind Art From the Heart. It’s the latest exhibit at Gloucester’s Rothwell Gallery, and was launched on Tuesday, July 21 to a full house, including Laureen Harper, wife of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The work – which will be on display until Saturday, July 25 – is a retrospective of Chohan’s more than a decade in the painting world. A self-taught artist since 1997, Chohan has also studied at schools including Paris’ L’école Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts and L’école de Louvre.

Her newest piece, entitled In Search of Peace, will be sold via silent auction this weekend, with all proceeds going to support the women of Pakistan’s Swat region, who are currently internally dislocated. “I’m not a commercial artist; I don’t sell my art,” says Chohan of her motivations and her main subject matters, which centre on women’s struggles and triumphs. “I try to reach out. I try to create awareness, but also create solidarity. The crux of the problems really remains the same (in every country).”

For her part, Rothwell owner Rehana Mufti – who was born in Pakistan, but has lived in Ottawa for the better part of four decades – says raising awareness is key to why she decided to partner in the exhibit and charity auction. “There’s been a lot of things happening in Pakistan where women and children are being displaced from their homes,” she explains. “We have so much in Ottawa. For us to even imagine what they go through is very, very difficult. I want to give something back to my birth country if I can.” For more information, please visit www.rothwellgallery.com