Srinagar, June 27 (KNS): Srinagar-born Diba Mushtaq has always processed life through artistic filters and a four-year degree in Fine Arts from Jamia Millia Islamia, gave her a cohesive artistic language. It is during these years that art became a calling for her. For her debut show awash in lyrical black-and-white hues, Kashmir and its layered ethos inevitably became her muse. She titled the show ' Loul' because as she says, "This is an indefinable Kashmiri word with nuances that are hard to explain.

Only a native who has grown up in this soil will fully understand the layers of this emotion. My work is an attempt to capture this yearning, this love for what Kashmir represents in a gentle, warm embrace. An embrace reminiscent of how my father would hug me, saying "Loul aaya tha".

I live with my family in Delhi now but every year this ‘Loul’ pulls me back home. This exhibition is an outpouring of love for this beautiful land that I was so blessed to be born in."(KNS)