Chinartree

Nadia Khawaja’s ‘Sight Insight’ at the Jam Jar, Dubai - April 09

By Jyoti Dhar

Nadia Khawaja has been working away quietly in her Lahore-based studio for the past 18 months. While her better-known contemporaries Farida Batool and Huma Mulji have been busy exploring digital- and installation-based media, Khawaja has chosen to examine the use of line and form at its most instinctive level. In her recent exhibition, entitled Sight Insight, she presents her most cohesive body of work yet, a highly intricate series of more than 30 drawings.

While Lahore’s Grey Noise Gallery initially previewed some of these works, the collection was only fully exhibited in her current show. Ultimately, Khawaja reveals three different, identifiable types of ‘felt-tip pen on paper’ drawings, complete with an element of naivety that fits any solo debut.

The first of these varieties consists of four diagrammatic compositions, reminiscent of organic life forms. With meticulous precision, Khawaja weaves together fine, overlapping, concentric circles of what appears to be ‘exoskeletons.’ Drawing 22, for example, takes on a chrysalis-like shape, with a perceptible head, body, and tail. Stepping back from the drawing one becomes aware of the optical illusion produced by the intersecting lines. The result is the visualization of a magnetic impulse running through the being’s core, almost as if it represents its very soul.

The next set of similarly constructed works is also made up of circular arrangements, this time akin to sound-wave formations. Drawings 8, 9, and 10 show circles and semi-circles emitting impulses that collide and bounce off each other. In various vision-distorting patterns, these Op-art-inspired drawings seem to be personal mappings of seismic vibrations. Drawing 24 is the most powerful of these, with several different layers of annular configurations combining to create a master arrangement.

The last set of drawings, portraying a range of hollow, tubular structures, is very different. At times fragmented, these works are comparable to branches or broken capillaries; at other times, complete, they run over the edge of the work. Drawing 7 illustrates an interlaced network of these flat, ribbon-like forms. Layer upon layer of piped pathways flow across the paper, intersecting, but never interrupting, the other’s journey. One is aware of this work’s resemblance to the intricacies of woven fabric at the most microscopic level.

Overall, Sight Insight evokes a deep affiliation with nature and its patterns, whether it is with textiles, timber or mono-cellular creatures. Although the patterns have a precise geometry, there are always areas of greater and lesser intensity, breaks in regularities, imperfections in perfect designs, phenomena consistent with natural order. These drawings are the perfect foundation for Khawaja’s future work with ‘sound-waves,’ as they represent her preliminary development of these concepts.

So far, a focus on meditative experimentation has led to Khawaja’s progression within this series of drawings, a palpable influence of her time at the National College of Art in Lahore. It is interesting to note that whilst alumni from her alma mater, such as Salima Hashmi and Naiza Khan, have received international acclaim for their exploration of political and feminist agendas, Khawaja has chosen to pursue more abstract concepts. A continuation of this process will allow the evolution of new directions in Pakistani art as well as a self-assured, successive solo for Khawaja.

Reprinted with kind permission of Asian Art News. Copyright (c) Asian Art Press (International) Limited 2009.