Bangladeshi artist couple Ayesha Sultana and Nabil Rahman stayed at an outdated home at Kesavadasapuram in Thiruvananthapuram for seven weeks for an artwork residency programme. During that point they found possessions left behind by the previous residents of the home. The couple, deeply impacted by these objects, determined to pay homage to their keep within the metropolis with an artwork exhibition, with works ready with supplies discovered on the home.
This is the story behind Footnotes, at present on at Neighbour Gallery. The showcase was inaugurated on September 26 and comprises 38 works — 22 by Nabil and 16 by Ayesha. The works make use of all kinds of media, together with slabs of granite, handmade paper, outdated encyclopedia sheets, inscribed stones, papier-mâché, and silicone, amongst others.
Nabil Rahman
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Nabil’s Cartilage, a collection of encyclopedia pages with summary shapes made by ink spills over it, is a commentary on tradition and society, say the artists. “Languages come with their own set of nuances surrounding their origins. And whoever controls language controls society’s narratives,” he explains. The artist makes an attempt to make clear how data is disseminated in a society and the way it is managed. “My process has been to create distance between an individual entity and its context, without saying much,” says Nabil, whose works have been proven on the Dhaka Art Summit (Bangladesh), Bellas Artes Projects, Manila (Philippines), and so on. He has additionally labored as a contract journalist.
Cartilage from Footnotes exhibition
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In a piece titled, Afterimages, he additional removes the pictorial parts on paper and works solely with ink spills of crimson and blue. He identifies this collection of works as a transfer away from textual content and observing “abstractions from a distance. It is more about being rather than trying to think your way through to a meaning.”
Afterimages from Footnotes exhibition
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“Visually, it’s about eliminating the text. I don’t want to say anything directly; art is meant to evoke thought or an emotion,” says the artist, who moved to the US when he was 10 years outdated.
Nabil shows a number of works on handmade paper. In two works titled Postulate, he builds a series of numeric sequences organized one under the opposite. “Numbers or words are concrete, but by using them, you create abstractions rather than concrete ideas made with repetition and restructuring. It represents how things are rewritten, and we grow up realising what we knew before was not true.”
His different works embrace Traces, that are ink impressions of discovered objects embossed on handmade paper; Aftermath, a slab of granite discovered by Nabil with blade marks on it, representing patterns or imprints which can’t be replicated; stone inscriptions, and so on.
Traces and Aftermath at Footnotes exhibition
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Ayesha’s work makes an attempt to hint the physique by impressions and gestures, whereas drawing consideration to the absence of a physique, reminding everybody of the transient nature of life.
Ayesha Sultana
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Her work Threshold is a pair of suspended legs product of papier-mâché hanging down the partitions of the gallery. The piece was made by casting her personal legs with the medium and utilizing them to create an impression of a physique on the gallery, says Ayesha, whose works have been displayed on the Riyadh Art Week and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, amongst others.
Threshold at Footnotes exhibition
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“The first time I visited the gallery, I had the sensation of a presence there. I imagined a full female body in this space, but then, while I began preparing for the show, we decided to choose the lower body to merely suggest a presence,” says the artist.
Her work Gestures is a collection of 12 work of summary concepts, which she completed throughout her interval of residency. Ayesha takes an impressionist strategy in utilizing shapes and figures to convey her feelings.
Parts of Gestures collection at Footnotes exhibition
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“My work is based on sourcing material and transforming it entirely into something else. It’s how I put myself out there or communicate with the world,” she says.
Instinct, net set up at Footnotes exhibition
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Instinct is an internet 91 centimeters in diameter, made with silver, wooden, and nylon. Ayesha says, “The web suggests different things. Other artists have also worked with using the web, the spider as some kind of symbolic representation. Nature is found a lot in my work.”
Her different works embrace Fold, an impression of a human physique made on Silicone; and Chords, made utilizing copper medium.
