Lal Ded's Verses Meet Pashmina in Masood Hussain's New Srinagar Exhibition
Kashmiri artist Masood Hussain has painted Lal Ded's verses on Pashmina shawls in an exhibition in Srinagar, a technique he developed with textile artist Mujtaba Kadri.
Pashmina shawls have become canvases for the verses of the Kashmiri mystic Lalleshwari, known as Lal Ded and revered by both Muslims and Hindus in the Valley. The paintings are the work of the artist Masood Hussain, who developed the technique with the textile artist Mujtaba Kadri.
The exhibition, Lal Ded — Vaakhs of Silence, is on display on the top floor of Maqam, Kadri's painted studio in Rajbagh, Srinagar. It features 20 pieces. On the shawls, the dyed motifs sit close together without the colours bleeding into one another.
Hussain said painting on the fabric was unfamiliar ground. Accustomed to paper, acrylic and watercolour, he found the natural fibre a challenge, and it took months to work out the right colours and their tonal variations. He was 73 when he took up the technique, which had not been used in the Valley before.
The project grew out of a conversation between Kadri and Hussain in December 2024 and took two years of work. Kadri, who has spent 28 years in the pashmina trade, described the show as "art for Kashmir", saying the market's focus on tourists can crowd out engagement with local heritage. He wanted to create an artistic space in Kashmir for Kashmiris.
Behind each work is a vaakh by Lal Ded, a cultural reference that crosses community lines. Hussain spent a year studying the verses before translating them into colour, drawing on Autar Mota's translations, which are credited with bringing Lal Ded to a wider readership. For generations before that, her verses passed down orally and are now part of Kashmir's collective memory.
One of Lal Ded's vaakhs, about entering a flower garden and beholding one's own essential form, is seen as capturing the spirit of the exhibition.
Hussain is best known for "transparent strokes" that are said to reveal the soul beneath the surface, and has worked across watercolour, relief, mixed media, paper pulp, oil and installation. Even so, the new style demanded repeated attempts.
Preparing each shawl is slow work. Spinning the pashmina thread takes about 40 days and weaving nearly 15. Before dyeing, the fabric is coated with a layer of glue, which Hussain said makes it behave like paper; the shawls are then steamed for hours so the dyes take permanently.
The inaugural show was held in Srinagar, and Kadri now plans to take it outside the Valley.