Mussarat Mirza obtained a MFA from the Punjab University Fine Arts Department in 1964. Since then, her work adapted a contemporary approach to a strong sense of environmental identity. She has projected the essence of her subjects. Thus the work, generated from specific locations and people, seems beyond the world of appearances.
Liberated from the world of appearances, the tangible she works on her own imagined universe, the landscape of the soul, where she wants the viewer to read tangible realities. The conceptual contents of her paintings are vigorous and therefore hold the viewers attention. She translates her feelings almost literally in her canvases by dramatic use of contrasting light and shade of a vibration of one low colour against another. The strong and energetic vision of internal relation of a person's body and soul is presented by her in a unique and influential manner. She forms semi realistic scenes by forceful brush strokes skilfully achieving the detail representation of her subject.
Blurring human figures and architectural details is her iconic style from the beginning of her career. Her rustic figures and buildings, homes and trees all in a cubist patterns with lurking cones, spheres, squares, oblongs, triangle and cubes enveloped in a blaze of light bouncing off the objects and figures.
She portrays human condition through philosophical and aesthetic artworks. Her knowledge and insight helps her rendering mental states of people effectively.
Her exceptional skills turn the canvas into a hazed reality which emerges from the heavy texture and specks of colours. The traces of figures and objects peep through the broken patches of colours. Her tonal painting brilliantly portrays her subject under changing tones of colour and light on different sides of an object or figure.
The different hues of dull colours merge into each other without losing their identities concealing the composition into darkness; there is sometimes a ray of light indicating hope. The series is different from Mussarrat's famous deserted scenes of Sukkur and other nearby villages, especially those seen from the roof top. The dusty atmosphere of her paintings with a few natural colours - browns, greens and blue-greens in subdued tones with a pinch of red shows her signature style.