An Elephant in Front of the Window
“There are things deeply rooted within me, yet whose paths I cannot clearly trace—things transmitted, coming from afar. It is almost a kind of disquiet, similar to what is sometimes felt by those whose families have migrated: the sensation of carrying within oneself fundamental elements that cannot always be connected to the present environment, that struggle to find their place here. They belong to another place, where we no longer live, but from which our parents, our ancestors, came. A space lit as if at dusk.
I have sought to work around this idea of troubled clarity, of vision challenged, of the manifestation of absence – a moment when everything wavers, when perception itself becomes unstable.” Nadira Husain
In the first space, one encounters a group of giants: pieces in fabric and ceramic evoking oversized kurtas and kaftans. The bodies are absent, yet ceramic fragments—breasts, eyes, hands, a foot—lend these hybrid figures a sense of gravity, a connection to the ground.
Arranged throughout the space, they embody a form of absence that takes on a benevolent, almost ancestral presence, engaging visitors in silent conversation.
A jali (or moucharabieh in Arabic), an intricately patterned window, separates this space from the next. Featuring elephants - the largest land mammals - in place of traditional geometric motifs, the threshold creates a porous interplay of gaze obstructed and encouraged. This motif, also a stereotypical image of India, speaks to the forms of exoticism that diasporic individuals carry within themselves as a way to continue recognizing their cultural roots. The jali is made of metal: it sparkles and reflects light, echoing other elements in the exhibition - the glazes on the ceramics, the painted walls, the canvases adorned with sequins, glitter, mirrors, and iridescent colors. Viewers are continually offered moments of shimmering brightness amidst spaces of cultural opacity, of muddied clarity, of figures refusing to show themselves.
The Backdrop series displays bodies seen from the back. Nearly blending in with the actual backdrop motifs, almost ornamental, they maintain a striking presence - the figures withhold any return of the gaze. The canvases themselves are highly ornamental, saturated, almost excessive, and even more so because of their display against a painted wall that continues their floral motifs. Ornamentation is pushed to its limits with sleuths of motifs, sequins, mirrors, and sewn-in jewelry, bordering on notions of camp. Husain plays with saturation and excess to the point of overwhelming the gaze and challenging the ability to focus within a lush, fluid accumulation of layers.
In the history of Eurocentric art, ornament has long been relegated; seen as secondary, decorative, or accessory. In Islamic art, however, it holds autonomous power, a sense of infinity, of the divine. Husain’s Backdrops, as well as the rest of her painterly work, fluidly engage with both interpretations.
Fluidity is also a thematic red thread in the final painting Global Bâtarde Education, which focuses on a central concept in Husain’s work: that of the “bâtarde.” Used in the feminine form, it breaks away from patriarchal paradigms and claims hybrid, multiple, fluid identities in a globalized world. A space lit as if by dusk, where all things and beings coexist.