Socially conscious artists create thought provoking works

In this post, we take a look at the philosophy and processes of artists Seher Naveed, Abir Karmarkar,  Mala Iqbal, Kanishka Raja and Gisela Insuaste who feature in a group show at Aicon gallery, New York. 

Depiction of project affected families

Seher Naveed was trained as an artist internationally, with a Bachelor’s in Painting and Photography from Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in Karachi, Pakistan and a Master’s of Fine Art from Central Saint Marins College of Art and Design in London. Originally from Mangla, the effect of the construction of the Mangla Dam and subsequent displacement of the families and villages has informed her concentration on memories in her artwork. Working in layers of cut paper, her work serves as a collection of preserved memories.

Voyeuristic self-portraits

Abir Karmarkar’s informal, yet highly-detailed and voyeuristic self-portraits, in which he places his naked body in intimate settings, are a recurring theme in his work. Karmakar questions the notions and formalities of gender, sexuality, intimacy and the complex relationships a person can have, not just with others, but with oneself. He articulates, “I have never been interested in binaries – male/female, private/public, right/wrong, real/fiction, but the area that connects, blurs or overlaps them.”

Using a landscape’s collective cultural memory

The work of Mala Iqbal takes us to a place that is difficult to pin down. This is perhaps due in part to her landscapes avoiding convenient dichotomies such as urban and rural. Using a collective cultural memory of landscape, culled from sources as varied as Sunday morning cartoons and Hudson River School paintings, as its basis, Iqbal adopts a hybrid vernacular, combining seamless airbrushed skies and backgrounds with gestural splatters and flows of paint that are at once familiar yet fantastic, referencing the surrounding environment as well as art historical moments.

Fusion of private/public domains

In Kanishka Raja’s panoramic realms, the energetic fusion of private and public domains of distinct global settings, interlocked by pulsating patterns derived from textile design and ornamentation, form a complex visual field spanning several panels.

Site specific, emotionally charged works

Gisela Insuaste works in painting, drawing, sculpture, and most notably, installation. Her works are site specific, and serve as a means for exploring our individual and shared spaces and identity, in their emotionally and politically charged nature. Her interest in urban spaces is rooted in a desire to understand the interconnectedness of people, places, and things, and thus create spaces that reflect our fragile and dynamic relationship between the built and natural environment.

Typically employing boards of plywood adorned with colorful paint, she creates dynamic and architectural forms, sculptural in their contour and suggestive movement, her quirky topographies are meant to resonate with personal narratives of the urban spaces they occupy.