War and Pieces

Her first exhibition,“Jihad Pop” at Bose Pacia in 2008 was a collection of such thoughts. She now brings her fourth solo,“Paper to Monument” that opens on December 8 at Nature Mort,Niti Bagh.

In “Paper to Monument”,the 34-year-old artist focuses on the past. Uniformed men marching on dusty grounds or forming human pyramids of hierarchy,garlanded political leaders with faces obscured by arabesques,mirror images housed in decorative frames,architectural motifs and elaborate city plans are among the elements that constitute her works.

The commentary that marks her works draws from her own story. In the late 1990s,her decision to choose a Sikh life-partner was met with much debate that followed her even to New York,where she was studying at the Fiorella La Guardia School of Arts and Performing Arts. This struggle gained a political edge after the September 11 attacks on the twin towers,when the media exploded with images of Muslim— “All negative and stereotypical,” as the Brooklyn-based artist puts it.

“Watching New York City change for the Muslim community was also a difficult experience on a personal level,” she recalls. “Communities such as the one in Coney Island,home to a large group of South Asians,that I had frequented with my family on various dinners and grocery outings,have changed due to illegal detentions and deportations,” says Shah,whose art reflects such realities.

Shah began to question her identity as a Muslim and,digging deep down,came up with a set of images that were associated with and influenced by the media,personal travel photographs,animation,graffiti and even hand-drawings.

As “Paper to Monument” shows,the much-travelled artist has imbibed the architecture of her surroundings and they appear almost as memory drawings in clusters — the religious iconography of Islamic monuments in Pakistan,the grandiose architecture of France ,Belgium and the home Pakistan. “The connection of time,architecture,memory and music are all fused together in a hazy state and sometimes can be distilled through images,” says the artist,whose works are priced between Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 6 lakh.

Her training as an architect explains her predilection for drawings,floor-plans and photographs of architectural edifices. Sitting mostly on the ground with a pen or pencil in hand,Seher outlines a complex construction of icons,symbols,spaces and historical eras. Shah is a mid-career artist who is perhaps better known in New York than in India,but Peter Nagy’s gallery,which is hosting this exhibition,may change that.