Kaheela Zaman

Kaheela Zaman (1421-1476) was an Abayadi painter and sculptor. She has been called “one of the greatest Abayadi artists of the 15th century” and a “pioneer in modern Abayadi art.” Drawn to painting from an early age, Zaman began receiving formal lessons in the arts at age eight. She gained her first recognition in the years leading up to the Abayadi Revolution and was quickly captivated with the event and its players, becoming an iconic symbol of the Futurist art movement.

In her youth, Zaman traveled to various countries including Achysia, Ayeran, and Dhamila, deriving heavily from pre colonial styles and themes that she witnessed while visiting. She is considered a crucial painter of 15th-century Abayad, whose legacy stands at least level with, if not above, the other Futurist painters. She was also an avid sculptor, reader, and pianist. Zaman’s paintings are among the most famous, as well as controversial, by an Abayadi woman to modernity.

Early Life and Education
Kaheela Zaman was born in 1421 in Zil-Haryun, Abayad to Heli and Majed Zaman, an opera singer from an affluent family and a wealthy bureaucrat who served the city’s Merchant Families. Her parents first met in 1436, while Heli was visiting Zil-Haryun as a companion to a visiting party of dignitaries. Kaheela was the elder of two daughters; her younger sister was Soha Zaman (born 1422). Zaman spent most of her early childhood in Zil-Haryun, where she was educated by the best tutors that money could buy. Early on, she showed an aptitude for art, so her father contracted with the artist Tabar Noori to serve as her art tutor. Yosef guided her by critiquing her work and gave her an academic foundation to later build upon. When she was young, she would paint the servants in her house, sometimes getting them to model for her.

Her family faced financial problems beginning in 1429, prompting them to sell their home in the city and move to their country home instead. Kaheela and Soha both learned piano and violin at this time, and by age nine they were giving concerts and acting in plays in a nearby theater. Though she had been painting since she was five, Zaman formally began painting at the age of eight. She began receiving lessons from painter Siraj Abed, who was later replaced by famed artist Qamar Yosef. Despite her family’s dire financial situation, Zaman and her sister lived a relatively privileged lifestyle.

In 1431, Heli came to know Achysian sculptor Ahreon Karazako, who was living in a small cottage outside Zil-Haryun at the time so he could paint studies of the countryside. In 1432, when he returned to Achysia, she too moved there, bringing along Zaheera and enrolling her in an art school in Akmoryos. Though she only studied there for a few years before returning later that same year, it was there that Zaheera was exposed to the works of the Achysian masters, as well as influences from Elyrian revival art movements.

At sixteen, Zaman sailed to Ayeran with her mother and sister to join their father, who had been living there for some time as part of a business venture. There, she drew numerous inspirations from traditional Ayerani art, as well as Zhenian influences. While there, she was described by her tutor, noted Ayerani-Abayadi painter Suhail Mina, to have painted with a conviction and maturity rarely seen in a 16-year old. In 1439, she was briefly engaged to her paternal first cousin Abad Katib, but the engagement was broken off when their family was forced to return to Abayad due to their persistent money troubles. In her diaries, it is recorded that Zaman engaged in covert same-sex relationships with her peers, although unlike later, these remained secret until she died.

Early Career (1441-1456)
Zaman’s early paintings display a significant influence of foreign modes of painting, specifically from Achysian and Zhenian styles. Most of the subjects of her early work were political; upon their return to Abayad, her family found a brewing civil war in their midst. Rebel forces lead by Karom Fason espousing the ideas of republicanism and democracy dominated much of the southern countryside, and exiled academics such as Asraf Hamal continued penning essays from abroad advocating for the overthrow of the Merchant Families. It was at this time that Zaman read many of these essays, eventually declaring herself a Hamalist and being kicked out of her home by her father.

Taking the opportunity afforded her by her newfound freedom, Zaman sought out and joined the nearest rebel cell. She familiarized herself with firearms at the time, taking part in a few skirmishes but mainly serving the role of informant. Her painting at this time mostly captured the visages of her comrades in arms, although she produced a few self portraits at the time as well. Rebel forces even utilized her talents, having her create posters that would be replicated and distributed encouraging local people to rise up against the Merchant Families. Zaman was open about her past, but swore that she would either help the people of Abayad gain their freedom or die in the attempt. During her time moving around with her comrades in arms, she spent a great deal of time in the caves dotting Zil-Haryun’s countryside, where she witnessed numerous faded frescoes from the Classical era that impacted her work as well. After fifteen long years of running, fighting, and hiding, the war ended with the Treaty of Abayad City in 1456, bringing a close to a chapter of Abayad’s history as well as Zaman’s career as an artist.

Later Career (1456-1476)
Following the end of the war in 1456, Zaman toured southern and western Abayad and produced a trilogy of paintings based on the regions’ sights. These paintings reveal her passionate sense of color and equally passionate empathy for her subjects, often depicted in poverty and despair. By now, she had fully formulated her ‘artistic mission’ in her head, which was, according to her, to express the life of the Abayadi people through her canvas and help provide a new style to depict it. While staying in a traveler’s camp in Tafari, she wrote to a friend: “I can only paint in Abayad, in the country. Achysia belongs to Elyrian ghosts, and Ayeran belongs to the Zhenians. Abayad belongs only to me.” This period of her work marks a new phase in her artistic development, one that was distinct from her earlier phase borrowing more heavily from foreign influences.

It was at this time that Zaman’s work began garnering attention at the national scale. Her unique style combined with her ideological alignment with the new regime made her a perfect candidate to be elevated as one of the newest members of the Futurist movement. Futurism was the artistic companion to Republicanism in the new Abayad, and Zaman’s work would be a defining part of it. She moved to Abayad City at this time, joining the state-funded “Progressive Artists’ Group,” also informally called the “Qabl Group,” an artists’ commune dedicated to developing the bold new national style. It was during her time in the group that she painted numerous scenes portraying the leisurely rhythms of life in rural Abayad, contrasting with her earlier, more grim work. Acclaimed by critics across the nation as the greatest new painter of the decade, her work was propagated by the new government in the form of prints, murals, and more. She traveled across Abayad with her paintings as part of a state-backed showcase in 1462 created to allow for the public to see more Futurist pieces.

Although she was alienated from her family at this time, she made contact with her sister in 1460 and kept touch until the end of her life. Despite her privileged upbringing, she was attracted to the poor, the distressed, and the deprived, and her paintings of peasants and villagers were commonly not just a meditative reflection of their condition, but that of the whole nation. She was attracted to the philosophy of Asraf Hamal as well, Abayad’s first Prime Minister and later first Chancellor. The two met numerous times, and Hamal was reportedly charmed by her talent and charisma. Her paintings were at one point even used in state propaganda for village reconstruction in the country’s south and northeast. Hamal and Zaman exchanged letters for a time, mostly discussing politics and art.

Zaman was known for her relationships with women going back to her time serving in the Republic’s Provisional Armed Forces, having painted many of them throughout her career. Her shameless depiction of the feminine form in defiance of traditional Abayadi conventions of modesty made her work somewhat controversial with some, but most admired it for its beauty and In 1471, she moved back to Zil-Haryun from Abayad City, welcomed back almost as a folk hero. She lived and painted at a house down the street from the city palace she’d been born in. Her studio was on the top floor of the townhouse she inhabited. In 1476, just days after opening a major solo exhibit in Zil-Haryun, she became seriously ill and slipped into a coma, later dying in the night at age 55. Her cause of death was never ascertained, and she was buried with state honors a week later.

Legacy
Zaman’s art has influenced generations of Abayadi Futurist artists who followed her, such as the famous artist and poet Umma Shummal. Her inclusion of women in her pieces on everyday Abayadis made her art a beacon for women at large in Abayad and abroad. The Abayadi Government has declared her works as National Cultural Treasures, and most of the best-known surviving pieces of hers are housed in the National Gallery of Modern Art in Abayad City. A postage stamp depicting her painting ‘ ‘ was released in 1548, and Kaheela Zaman Avenue is a street in Zil-Haryun renamed in her honor. Her work is deemed to be so vital to Abayadi culture that, when it is sold, the Abayadi government has stipulated that the art must stay within the country’s borders - fewer than ten of her works have been sold globally. The Abayadi Cultural Center in Ayeran on the island of Eriban is named the Kaheela Zaman Cultural Center.