MEENA SAIFI AN AFGHAN ARTIST AFGHAN PAINTER

Introduction: Afghan artist Meena Saifi is a rising star in the world of international art. Born in Kabul, she and her family were forced by the Afghan civil war to flee to Pakistan in the 1990s. They eventually found safe haven inRawalpindi, Islamabad. Her father Asadullah Saifi, an artist himself, built a successful school there to educate his own children and those of other Afghan refugees. From an early age Meena helped her father build the school’s curriculum, while continuing to draw and paint anything she could.Still in a refugee status, the Saifi family was forced to relocate to Peshawar in 2004. Meena’s talent was recognized there by the revered Afghan artist Ustad (Art Master) Qais Nawabi. Under his tutelage she quickly became his premier art student. At the age of sixteen Meena’s first oil painting, “Dream,” was sold at a record price to an art collector in Germany. The international art community began to take notice.As her work evolved, Ustad Nawabi began referring to her respectfully as “Ustad Meena.” (Art Master Meena). She held her first official art show in Peshawar in late 2007. At this show another of her paintings, “Baba Panjshiri” (Panjshir Grandfather) commanded great attention and was sold to an international art investor. Shortly afterward Meena was offered her first media interview, with Voice of America.