This article profiles Pakistani artist Noor Ul Ain, whose textile-based practice transforms embroidery and painting into vivid celebrations of female autonomy and everyday joy. Drawing inspiration from her mother and grandmothers’ domestic craft traditions, Noor's work merges the retro aesthetics of South Asian film posters with intimate, contemporary portrayals of women through her colourful, tactile compositions.
Growing up in a home full of strong women, Pakistani artist Noor Ul Ain was surrounded by an atmosphere of affection and care. Her grandmothers spent their days crocheting, knitting, and sewing — crafting everything from pillowcases to small garments for their grandchildren — while her mother, too, embroidered and stitched with a similar devotion, though never professionally. Those domestic acts of making stayed with Noor, shaping her understanding of femininity not just as a theme but as a practice of labour and love. “Since childhood, being surrounded by all of these inspirations already around me really helped me to create something that other people can relate to, especially in case of womanhood,” she reflects.
When she began drawing in 2015, it was women who naturally became the centre of her artistic world. “I was really, really more resonated towards drawing female figures,” she says. “Just the anatomy of the female and the femininity in every position, in every pose and every feature — it really attracted me a lot.” What began as sketches grew into a sustained exploration of women’s energy, individuality, and emotional landscapes, eventually forming the foundation of her thesis and the textile-based practice she is known for today.Noor Ul Ain
"I have a lot of girlfriends and a really strong female presence in my household as well and I think I just get my inspiration from them, seeing them around me and you know just getting so much love from them every day. I think that really makes the whole experience of creating like a full circle moment."Noor Ul Ain
At art school, she refined this inheritance into her own visual vocabulary, experimenting with painting and embroidery until the two began to merge. “Even though yes, I do love to embroider, I really love to paint as well,” she explains. “My strength over colour always comes from painting or visually seeing it first and then taking it towards embroidery.” The result is a body of work that feels both tactile and cinematic — vivid with colour, texture, and a deep awareness of how women see themselves.
Noor’s compositions echo the retro allure of South Asian film posters, with their bold hues and dynamic framing. But her interpretation subverts the male gaze that underlines them. “When I was researching these posters, I realised that most of them had a hero taking up the entire three-fourth part of the poster, whereas the female figure was just a smaller, tiny little girl who is most of the time sexualized or just shown as a very pure woman or a mother figure,” she notes. In contrast, her own figures take centre stage — laughing, lounging, sharing cigarettes and tea or simply existing without apology. “I wanted to showcase that element that was missing — that females can have fun; they can prioritise themselves first, be of any age and still enjoy themselves.”
"I especially liked the lithography elements in old vintage posters: the typography, the borders it had, the bright pop art colours, and the way they fused it all all together, but still looked very balanced. The different styles every poster had really inspired me and I wanted to combine all of them together and make a picture out of them."Noor Ul Ain
Her research into Urdu digests further reinforced this conviction. “Even though they were all written for women, it all just showed women in like a trap, a box maybe,” she says. “There was no time, no leisure for themselves.” Through her embroidered scenes, Noor reclaims that space of leisure and autonomy. Her artworks are ordinary, intimate, yet radical in their insistence on selfhood.
“I just wanted to push this notion,” she says, “that regardless of the age, regardless of the occupation, regardless of any title you have, you still are allowed to do the things you like.” In Noor Ul Ain’s world, a woman reading, gossiping, or riding a bike is a playful assertion of freedom stitched in colour and thread.
Follow Noor here.
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