ARTISTS TALKING

Returning from a research trip to India, I visited the ‘Platform for Art’ exhibition by Henna Nadeem at Piccadilly Circus Underground in the ticket hall and station. Nadeem designs swirling, stylised stencil designs overlaid on vast photographic images of landscapes. I saw her work in the ‘Pattern Crazy’ show at the Crafts Council in 2002, where it was smaller scale and influenced by Islamic designs and motifs collaged on top of various landscape and travel scenes. ‘Trees, Water, Rocks’ is somewhat different. The title, playfully referring to the game Rock Paper Scissors has varied cultural references and iconography. In these new works, the origin of these designs are less clear, more muddied but rich with multicultural motifs and patterns. Nadeem explains she is expanding her references to include images that she finds formally pleasing, with less emphasis on their geographic and cultural origin. In my studies and travels in modern India, I find the culture embracing modern design, technology and lifestyle and mixing it deftly but sometimes awkwardly, with tradition and history. Here Nadeem combines Japanese, Moorish and Islamic motifs, together with natural landscapes and wilderness from around the world, with great success.

Her work looks digitally produced, but the collage is cut by hand. The handcrafted process of making these works is revealed for the first time due to the scale of the works in this exhibition, some as long as six metres. Viewers can see Nadeem’s careful scalpel cut-outs of the overlaid patterns. The landscapes have been enlarged to several times their original size making the viewer feel like stepping into some of the landscapes, such as her scene of looking through a forest, part of a series in the ticket hall. This is one of the few photographs that is not an aerial view and the result is a more intimate connection between viewer and landscape. The floral cut-out collage superimposed onto the scene seems to be a veil or curtain that could be brushed away to allow a way in. This unconventional location is a fitting place to exhibit Nadeem’s work, in a place parallel to the ‘real’ streetscape above. Her work is surreal and multilayered, showing an alternate yet inviting reality.