ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON ARTNOW MAGAZINE
Salima Hashmi’s retrospective show at Tollinton Market is a nostalgic homecoming of an artist whose relationship with the city of Lahore can be traced back to the very advent of the country. The collection of works on display is installed to shape a timeline offering a visual distillation of the artists journey beginning in the 1960s and carrying into the present day. The retrospective offers a parallel dimension revealing a more private art studio practice, where the viewer can join the artist in reflecting on her past with each piece set as a distinct memory. Even before entering the exhibition space, we are already aware of her monumental influence on the neighbouring education and arts institutions, Hashmi played a pivotal role pioneering art education, curation and social change through the arts throughout her career. Yet when viewing these early drawings belonging to the 1960s views of classical life drawing classrooms from her time at Bath Academy of Art in Bristol transport us to a time when the artist was building her visual vocabulary.
Returning to Pakistan, she continued her multifaceted career where an exciting shift can be seen moving away from traditional observations and laborious drawing techniques to the expressive exploration of line as seen in her drawing series from the 1980s “Alive in My Time” done in Lahore. The emergence of imagery referencing more indigenous roots and female representation evoke the play of shadow and light.
In the painting series “Absent Gods” from 1989 we see the artist has already anchored a frame within a frame as a compositional element that will keep recurring in her works throughout the coming years. When she attended the Rhode Island School of Design in the United States in 1990, paintings like “The Studio” take on larger colour fields of Alizarin and “Homage to Love” intrumentalises Orchre to create movement while the presence of Ultramarine is blended into the colour composition surfacing to the foreground when the artist separates each of these primary colours giving each of them their own directional and rhythmic presence in works like “Poem for Zainab” in 1995. Throughout her career, the artist has undoubtedly engaged in an artistic practice producing drawings, paintings, and photography artworks that evoke a deeply personal connection to her sense of identity and the resilience of the human spirit. There is a visible departure from adhering to classical painting techniques and entering into the hybridised visualisation by incorporating newsclippings and self portrait in the form of collage.
These works are powerful as they confront societal dichotomies through interceptions with painterly colour washes and intricately patterned mark making creating a tapestry that reflects deeply on the harsh truths of that time. While her primary focus might have been on establishing education and activism within the arts community, her studio practice carries an ephemeral and compassionate resonance relaying testimonies of struggle and strife.
It is during the 1990s period of her art practice, that the viewer starts to see various visual trajectories that the artist has been developing over the decades come together as a collection of painterly luminencece using naturalistic forms such the foliage, flowers and hands in contrast to bold blocks of colour. The deliberate weathering feels fossilised and almost ancient, Hashmi effortless traverses through antiquity and post-modern in “No Man’s Lands Salima Hashmi” and “Pursuing Radiance” by offering the sensual with the formalistic investigations of composition construction.
Another shift is visible when the canvas departs from coloured hues entering into a state of being engulfed by darker tones, the charcoal series feels immediate and microscopic in its investigation of form and light. Reminescent of negative fim, the influence of photography is ever present in Hashmis later works. As we reach present day of the timeline of the show “Family III” is an intimate piece that reveals an urban scene framed with the artists iconic mark making and weathered blocks of textured collage pieces, the hint of red and yellow paired with ghostly black and white forms create a depth feild that feels both painterly and photographic in nature.
Having walked through the decades of the artists journey, we are able to see the each visual elements history traveling across the timeline. For younger viewers, who might only know Hashmi by her larger-than-life reputation as one of the most important curators of our time, the retrospective display provides an insightful look into her visual methodologies. These methodologies unpack the lived experiences of the artist, having faced authoritative regimes that endangered human rights, the loss of history through displacement, and her observations of hurt, pain and strength that have shaped her individual and collective identity. The evolution of artistic expression here is directly linked to the artist’s core beliefs of freedom and acceptance, presenting the South Asian, Afghani and Punjabi self along with the influence of art history. With an innate sense of self that remains unchanged throughout the decades, we can witness how Hashmi has been documenting her deeply personal reflections on society and life through her studio practice.
Comentários