From poetry to filmmaking: Owais Husain, MF Husain’s youngest straddles various mediums

Artist Owais Husain, MF Husain’s youngest, on making peace with his identity, straddling various mediums and upcoming projects.

4 min readUpdated: Jan 9, 2016 05:37 PM IST

Owais Husain

It may appear ironic that with one of the most prominent surnames in Indian art, Owais Husain always attempted to withhold it, but the artist feels that was essential to ensure it did not influence the perception of his work. If at the age of 11 he ran away from Sanawar boarding school in Kasauli to become a “hermit painter”, in college Owais told his batchmates that his father was a foreign services official posted on a mission in Poland. “I was a little ambiguous,” says Husain. At 47, the youngest son of MF Husain has made peace with his identity. “The prejudice is obvious and bound to happen,” says the Dubai-based artist, who recently flew to Modi Nagar for a workshop with students at the International Institute of Fine Arts. On his return, after the two-day workshop this week, he carried with him codes and images created by the students that will combine with his own work in the collaborative installation House of Cards. The work will probably be installed in India later this year. “It is part of a broader exercise to create a lexicon that outlines urban mythology, maps identities, one’s own predicament and influences,” says the artist.

The project is a take-off from his own, more than a decade old, acrylic Nobody is where he wanted to be where Owais had commented on rampant migration. “It draws from displacement, no one is really where they want to be, everyone grapples with issues of identity and origins,” adds Owais, who has previously held a similar workshop with students at Lasalle College of the Arts, Singapore. “The geographical locations are important, since I’m seeking displacement and shifting of cultures,” says Owais, drawing his own history and movement from Gujarat to Mumbai to Dubai, apart from his numerous travels. The theme has engaged him for years. If his 2006 solo at Aicon gallery, New York, “Forest of Lost Languages” explored “the boundaries of forgotten homelands and the wasteland of memories in between”, his recent solo in India, at Mumbai’s Tao art gallery, was divided into three distinct subshows of “The Heart”, “The Mind” and “The Spirit”, the biggest wars that rage between the heart and the mind. The public art festival, PUBLICA, to take place from January 23 to February 29, will see another acclaimed work of his at Delhi’s SelectCitywalk. Called Heart of Silence, it will have three paper houses filled with light and suspended upside down from the ceiling, reflected in a pool of water beneath it. Upon them he will write his own poetry, words of introspection.

Unlike his father, Owais is not too prolific but he straddles various mediums — from music to filmmaking and poetry — all of which dwell into his art. “The end goal is to create a painting,” says the Sir JJ School of Art graduate. He credits his teacher Prabhakar Kolte for providing him with a vision that has guided him. “He helped develop the right attitude for me to embark on my own journey,” says Owais. And though he recalls picking a paintbrush at the age of three and early lessons with his father, it was much later that he decided to pursue art. “I wanted to do theatre at one point,” recalls the artist, who is currently composing an opera.

Though Owais has previously admitted that he and MF Husain often had differing views, they collaborated on two films Gaja Gamini and Meenaxi, A Tale of Three Cities. Five years after the veteran artist’s demise, Owais and his sister Raisa are also working on an estate for his work. “The foundation will also hold intellectual property rights for his work,” says Owais. Meanwhile, a documentary dedicated to his father, titled Letters to My Son about My Father, is also in the making.

Vandana Kalra

Vandana Kalra is an art critic and Deputy Associate Editor with The Indian Express. She has spent more than two decades chronicling arts, culture and everyday life, with modern and contemporary art at the heart of her practice. With a sustained engagement in the arts and a deep understanding of India’s cultural ecosystem, she is regarded as a distinctive and authoritative voice in contemporary art journalism in India. Vandana Kalra's career has unfolded in step with the shifting contours of India’s cultural landscape, from the rise of the Indian art market to the growing prominence of global biennales and fairs. Closely tracking its ebbs and surges, she reports from studios, galleries, museums and exhibition spaces and has covered major Indian and international art fairs, museum exhibitions and biennales, including the Venice Biennale, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Documenta, Islamic Arts Biennale. She has also been invited to cover landmark moments in modern Indian art, including SH Raza’s exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the opening of the MF Husain Museum in Doha, reflecting her long engagement with the legacies of India’s modern masters. Alongside her writing, she applies a keen editorial sensibility, shaping and editing art and cultural coverage into informed, cohesive narratives. Through incisive features, interviews and critical reviews, she brings clarity to complex artistic conversations, foregrounding questions of process, patronage, craft, identity and cultural memory. The Global Art Circuit: She provides extensive coverage of major events like the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Serendipity Arts Festival, and high-profile international auctions. Artist Spotlights: She writes in-depth features on modern masters (like M.F. Husain) and contemporary performance artists (like Marina Abramović). Art and Labor: A recurring theme in her writing is how art reflects the lives of the marginalized, including migrants, farmers, and labourers. Recent Notable Articles (Late 2025) Her recent portfolio is dominated by the coverage of the 2025 art season in India: 1. Kochi-Muziris Biennale & Serendipity Arts Festival "At Serendipity Arts Festival, a 'Shark Tank' of sorts for art and crafts startups" (Dec 20, 2025): On how a new incubator is helping artisans pitch products to investors. "Artist Birender Yadav's work gives voice to the migrant self" (Dec 17, 2025): A profile of an artist whose decade-long practice focuses on brick kiln workers. "At Kochi-Muziris Biennale, a farmer’s son from Patiala uses his art to draw attention to Delhi’s polluted air" (Dec 16, 2025). "Kochi Biennale showstopper Marina Abramović, a pioneer in performance art" (Dec 7, 2025): An interview with the world-renowned artist on the power of reinvention. 2. M.F. Husain & Modernism "Inside the new MF Husain Museum in Qatar" (Nov 29, 2025): A three-part series on the opening of Lawh Wa Qalam in Doha, exploring how a 2008 sketch became the architectural core of the museum. "Doha opens Lawh Wa Qalam: Celebrating the modernist's global legacy" (Nov 29, 2025). 3. Art Market & Records "Frida Kahlo sets record for the most expensive work by a female artist" (Nov 21, 2025): On Kahlo's canvas The Dream (The Bed) selling for $54.7 million. "All you need to know about Klimt’s canvas that is now the most expensive modern artwork" (Nov 19, 2025). "What’s special about a $12.1 million gold toilet?" (Nov 19, 2025): A quirky look at a flushable 18-karat gold artwork. 4. Art Education & History "Art as play: How process-driven activities are changing the way children learn art in India" (Nov 23, 2025). "A glimpse of Goa's layered history at Serendipity Arts Festival" (Dec 9, 2025): Exploring historical landmarks as venues for contemporary art. Signature Beats Vandana is known for her investigative approach to the art economy, having recently written about "Who funds the Kochi-Muziris Biennale?" (Dec 11, 2025), detailing the role of "Platinum Benefactors." She also explores the spiritual and geometric aspects of art, as seen in her retrospective on artist Akkitham Narayanan and the history of the Cholamandal Artists' Village (Nov 22, 2025). ... Read More

📣 For more lifestyle news, click here to join our WhatsApp Channel and also follow us on Instagram

Loading Recommendations...

Apr 15: Latest News

Live Blog