Hasnat Mahmood KRISHNA – GOD OF LOVE 2009 Digital print on paper, Edition of 3 41 x 27.5 in.
This summer, Aicon New York will present a new body of work by Pakistani artist Hasnat Mehmood.
Having trained at the National College of Arts in Lahore, Mehmood’s oeuvre is a revision of the Miniaturist technique and its role within the cultural heritage of Pakistan. Nonetheless, his approach is tranquil, almost poetic and philosophical in its rendering. Using the Miniaturist processes to create his works, Mehmood stretches and reframes the boundaries of what Miniaturist means, freeing the technique of both the weight of its history and current perspectives of what it ‘should’ be.
I Love Miniature consists of fourteen works that explore the miniature painting movement as it has evolved in Pakistan over the last two decades. The paintings are copies of the works of some of Pakistan’s best-known miniaturist practitioners of today. By reproducing them so, Mehmood references the criticism that miniaturist painting consists merely of the copying of works from the past: by choosing only to reproduce in each case a specific section of the chosen work, the artist appropriates them for himself in a way that is wholly contemporary.
Furthermore, Mehmood spells out in Braille the title and full details of each piece on top of the image it depicts – obscuring the image by the communication of its components – as if to say that the viewer is blind to the work’s actual appearance and guided only by what its label might say.
Back to Basics is a series of digital prints and drawings on scratchboard and paper composed only of lines and circles – the fundamental components of all images – now enlarged and giving the ‘miniature’ the central emphasis. In Pop-Art, Mehmood combines traditional miniature imagery with pop-art techniques of production and presentation. With Miniature painting today fast becoming popular amongst connoisseurs and specialists, the artist is punning on the idea of ‘pop’ and ‘popular’ and showing how the modern and the traditional can co-exist.
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