Artist to showcase works in Germany, Greece
Travellers at the Mumbai International Airport at T2 know the aesthetic impact of interlaced visual narratives with textual materials by Nilima Sheikh. Represented by Chemould Gallery and Gallery Espace, Nilima Sheikh has been invited to exhibit at Kassel as well as Athens for Documenta14, she gives art lovers a glimpse of these narrative classics in a set of panels.
‘Terrain: Carrying Across, Leaving Behind’ at Kassel in Germany consists of 16 panels seven feet high and a little less than three feet wide.
Painted on paper and then pasted on cloth the narrative of painted images, with poetry, written on painted surfaces give us a glimpse of vernacular lyricism as well the charisma of mystic and medieval wide-ranging works of the medieval Kashmiri mystic poet Lal Ded, Agha Shahid Ali of Kashmir, Vietnamese Ocean Vuong, Palestinian Mahmoud Darwish, as well as Punjabi and Gujarati folk songs. Glimpsed in the weave of melodic melancholia it is rich in meaning.
“The way I use beauty is also a critique of people who see beauty as external to expression, which, in modern times, has fostered closures and therefore guilt,” said Sheikh in ‘Trace Retrace’ (2015). “In a way, I am looking at other art histories to construct my work. Every work of art has its own politics within its language. I am not closing any definitive statement but leaving it open for interpretation.”
At once expressive and enigmatic with a surfeit of references, her lyrical brushwork adds to the sanguine cadences. Over the years, she has perfected the use of casein and casein- and gum-based tempera, to achieve a luminous colour palette. She counterbalances stencilled architectural, vegetal and miniature animal forms into her background texture.
She has stated that ‘Terrain’ deals with displacement. She weaves strands of narratives into the theme in order to narrate stories from Partition, from Kashmir and stories that in history have been tragic revolts against the pattern of patriarchy.
She does not give us imagery from immediate reality, but dips into the pages of memory to translate visuals and episodes from older narrative traditions. This transference helps her to give us chapters of tragic expressionism full of allegorical tales.
At Athens is another set of panels - the famed ‘Each night put Kashmir in your dreams’ (2003–14) which was shown at the Arts Institute in Chicago.
Resplendent and filled with richly-coloured scenes of prismatic joy she intersperses visual quotes from ancient miniatures and Kashmiri folktales. But one has to read of the allusions to know the depth and despondency that is hidden in the lexicon of the script.
‘I See Kashmir from New Delhi at Midnight’ (1997) by the late Kashmiri American poet Agha Shahid Ali, is an epic poem that is narrated by Nilima with dulcet dualities and paradigms as she interlaces social and political issues that affect Kashmir.
The beauty of translating anxiety in the paintings reflects affection and appreciation of the pages of history that define Kashmir. The texts run in tandem with the sheathes and swathes of colour as if floating in the reverie of lyrical cadences of Agha Shahid Ali’s poems, as well as medieval poetry and Salman Rushdie’s intricate imagery from his novels.