A freelance art writer, Salwat Ali was born and bred in Karachi. After graduating from Karachi University, in the seventies, she trained as an artist at the Pakistan Art Institute, under the tutelage of veteran artist Aftab Zafar. Specialising in portraiture in pen and ink on paper, her extensive Pakistan Movement series, Freedom Fighters of Pakistan, centralising on portraits of the Founding Fathers of Pakistan, was among her major works.
A trained artist, founder member and Associate Writer of The Fine Arts Society, she commenced formal writing on art for local publications in the early nineties. As an art critic she has been writing on a weekly and monthly basis for the country’s leading newspapers and periodicals. Currently she reviews art exhibitions and books for daily Dawn’s Gallery and Books and Authors supplements.
In 2005, Fomma published Exploring an Inner Landscape, a volume she wrote on the life and times of Laila Shahzada, a prominent woman artist of the sixties. Her award winning publication Journeys of the Spirit: Pakistan Art in the New Millennium, was published by Fomma in 2008 followed in 2011 by another volume, Making Waves, centralising on new generation art.
