TEHREEMA MITHA was born in Pakistan and grew up in a home full of paintings, books, music and lively debate. Despite growing up in the Muslim tradition (her father hailed from the Muslim Memon Community of Bombay), she studied many religions, read widely, trained in the Classical South Indian dance style of Bharatanatyam from the age of seven under the tutelage of her mother (a Christian Bengali) and learnt classical North Indian vocals.
It was not till later at college age that she was able to explore fully her interest in drawing and painting. At a time when society was becoming increasingly conservative and where a more fundamental view of Islam became the norm, Tehreema Mitha gained entry to The National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1982, an institute that has stood the test of time since the British Colonial rule in the area. While studying there, she obtained her BA in Philosophy and English Literature from Kinnaird College, and after the four-year course, left NCA in 1986 with her MA in Fine Arts.
Since then while concentrating on the very unusual career (for a Pakistani Muslim woman) as a Classical and Contemporary choreographer/dancer/music director, (her choreography has moved away from typical Hindu Myths while she composes/produces all her own music and designs the costumes) Mitha has continued to paint in various mediums, selling individual works of art from her home. Though initially more into oils, she began painting in watercolor in 1989, reducing the size of her canvas and honing in on the details. Here her earlier training in miniature painting seems to come to the fore along with a modern aesthetic. From 1988 to 1990 she taught Fine Arts at the privately run Lahore Grammar School as well as at Lahore Grammar College, (both theory and practical), giving up the job as she moved to Islamabad to concentrate on her very controversial dance career. There she met her husband, (a native of North Carolina who lived and worked with refugees in Pakistan for seven years), who supported her dance and art, even when their young son came along to complete the family circle.
Immigrating to the U.S. in 1997 as it became more difficult to practice her art in Pakistan, Mitha set up her Dance Company in 2001 while continuing to paint privately at her home. Like her dances, her paintings are in a spirit of rebellion against her own ancient culture that can be traced back to 9000 BC, but which daily turns on itself to become more and more suffocating; and the new world that demands that she bring her narrative to fully enter the western world, or stay within accepted and understood ethnic norms. Neither suits her. She has chosen instead to highlight the beauty of long held traditions from her native land while embracing the diversity of her new surroundings.
Thus, in her work she creates a new universe in which the past and present do not collide so much as collaborate, creating a narrative in each painting that always seems to contain a whole story within itself, one in which you can fill in the beginning and the end.
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