Purdue Galleries showcases evocative large-scale installations
Anila Quayyum Agha, "rights of passage," 2011, metallic and silk threads, beads, graphite pencil, screen-printing, xerox, and wax on paper, mounted on board
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Purdue Galleries will present two large-scale installations by artist Anila Quayyum Agha in an exhibit titled "A Flood of Tears." The exhibit lasts through Dec. 4.
Agha also will speak about her work and influences at 5:30 p.m. Thursday (Oct. 27) in Stewart Center, Room 310, with a reception immediately following in the Stewart Center Gallery.
Agha works in a cross disciplinary fashion with mixed media; creating artwork that explores and comments upon global politics, cultural multiplicity, mass media, and social and gender roles in our current cultural and global scenario. She mixes mediums fluently, working primarily on paper with paint, wax, dyes (often tea or coffee), collage elements, staining and calligraphy. Through large-scale installations of thread, paper and mixed media, she evokes poetic and luminous subliminal spaces that allow for the simultaneous contemplation of painstakingly crafted beauty and suffering, oppression and loss.
The installation "A Flood of Tears" is composed of simple materials, metallic threads and needles. Red threads suspended from the ceiling represent the metaphorical depiction of water driving down from the heavens. The piece references recent floods in Pakistan and the earthquake tsunami in Japan. While water is ephemeral, beautiful and necessary for the survival of the human race, it paradoxically holds the capacity to destroy human works and lives. Needles at the ends of the threads suggest the pain associated with burying loved ones, rebuilding lives and hearts and suggests the magnitude of the process of mourning.
The installation "Rights of Passage" uses motifs from the graves of women at the Makli necropolis near the Indus River Delta in Pakistan, which the artist visited two years ago. Designs on the women's graves evoked the embroidered garments and jewelry they would have worn in life. This repetition evokes the ambiguous boundaries between the two stages for women who are subjects of adornment. The installation is composed of images created with metallic and silk threads, beads, graphite pencil, screen-printing, Xerox, and wax on paper, all mounted on 100 boards.
"I am hopeful the seductive and layered surfaces may suggest a deeper exploration of issues of submission, oppression and domesticity," Agha says.
Anila Quayyum Agha was born in Lahore, Pakistan. She completed her BFA in textile arts at the National College of Arts and her MFA in fiber arts at the University of North Texas. Agha's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in over 11 solo shows and 40 group shows.
In 2005, Agha was an artist in residence at the Center for Contemporary Craft, Houston, and taught for three years at the University level in Houston. In 2008, she relocated to Indianapolis to take become assistant Professor of drawing at the Herron School of Art at IUPUI. In November 2009 Agha was the recipient of the Efroymson Arts Fellowship. She also has received an IAHI and three New Frontiers grants for research and travel to Pakistan, the United Kingdom and Spain.
The Stewart Center Gallery and the Robert L. Ringel Gallery are open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursdays; and 1-5 p.m. on Sundays. All Purdue Galleries exhibitions and events are free and open to the public
For class and group visits, contact Craig Martin at Purdue Galleries at 765-494-3061. For more information, visit https://www.purdue.edu/galleries
Contact: Craig Martin, 765-494-3061, cdmartin@purdue.edu