ISLAMABAD: Satrang Gallery inaugurated a solo exhibition, titled Confluence, that showcased the works of the internationally-acclaimed artist Nida Bangash.

Confluence will be on display for a month. The works range from video installations to modern miniatures – the discipline that the artist trained in at the National College of Arts.

The gallery’s director, Asma Rashid Khan, said: “Nida’s miniature art practice explores issues of cultural identity, dislocation, displacement and territoriality by examining the domestic as a charged political space.

“Nida’s patterned, often geometric, visuals and architectural motifs have been formed by her traditional training.”

Nida Bangash explains that “through the process of Mashq, an interdisciplinary practice loosely translated as exercise or repetition – I utilise both references from my immediate surroundings, as well as Indo-Persian art histories to investigate institutions as a continual colonial legacy.

“Coming from a tradition of Musawri and carpet weaving, I am interested in the formal and conceptual underpinnings of the grid - a binary structure of power that bears, gives form to, and disappears into the composition itself. The complexities of my concerns are explored through a cross disciplinary approach of painting, sculpting, performance and video installations. I explore the relation between contrasting mediums, aspiring to mediate static and moving images through an aesthetic that embodies the essence of my painting practice.”

The exhibition brings together selected works from three bodies of work - War Rugs with Love, I Am a Tree and This Bridge Called my Back. Titled after a book, Bridge Called my Back, the video installation was an anthology of artworks, essays and poems of a self-described group of “radical women of colour” first published in 1981.

The artist says that the works have continued to evolve and influence each other over the years examining the images of her childhood drawings of triangular-roofed, western archetype of a house as a structure.

The symbol represents both a private space from inside and an institution that translates its power source, radiating outside its parameters.

She uses ‘the house’ as a motif to explore notions of the postcolonial condition of dislocation, displacement and pluralities of human identities.

Using gouache, silver and copper line, natural pigments and silver leaf with letterpress printing, Nida’s work invites introspection.

Her series of works titled, I Am A Tree and The Tree of Life bring a breath of nature to paper.

Born in Iran, and raised in Pakistan, Nida lives and works in the US. She is exhibiting in Pakistan after a period of six years.

The diversity of Bangash’s background informs her art and she incorporates basic patterns from various traditions to beautiful effect.

Shazreh Saeed said: “Knowing that the artist returned to exhibit in Pakistan after six years, the work feels like a homecoming tribute, with the imagery of houses and trees; albeit one marked with the need to find one’s belonging when one has roots in more than one place.”

Published in Dawn, November 27th, 2019