In a new exhibit at Greenwich’s Bruce Museum, “Anila Quayyum Agha: Dualities,” the artist uses light and sculpture to transform gallery space into a surrounding visual experience with dramatic shadows and patterns on the ceiling, wall, and floor that visitors are unlikely to have seen in a museum before.
The exhibit features three of Agha’s large-scale works, which engage migration issues. It also includes a selection of works on paper that reflect Agha’s training in textile design and her innovative experimentation across media. The exhibit is at the Bruce until April 21.
The three sculptures use modern materials, scientific technologies such as laser-cut lacquered steel, and transmission of light. They fit well with museum founder Robert Bruce’s desire to create a museum for both art and science. But they also pay homage to the intricate floral and geometric patterns of Islamic art and architecture from the artist’s native Pakistan.
Each of the sculptures took several weeks to complete.
“This is NOT a Refuge!” is a huge metal box without a door to enter, which reflects exclusion, a concern for someone who was an immigrant. Agha created the flower designs, which were then sent to a company to laser cut metal forms. When those forms returned, she applied enamel and constructed the box. There was light coming from inside the box creating shadows.
“Itinerant Shadows” has four boxes weighing about 45 pounds each on the wall, set at different angles created by triangular cutouts on the corners of the boxes. These differences affected the shadows from the light.
For “My Secret Garden,” the colors of the Bruce gallery walls were modified to affect the shadows created by the light coming from the ceiling toward the sculptures.
The works on paper include drawings that are geometric and intimate in scale, some employing handmade Korean paper, while another group incorporates intricately hand-stitched embroidery and beadwork, reflecting the artist’s ongoing engagement with craft practices.
Agha was born in Pakistan in 1965. She attended a Christian boarding school, came to the United States around 1990, received a Master of Fine Arts from the University of North Texas in 2004, worked as a textile designer, and has been a university teacher. Her work has appeared in many exhibitions in America, Europe, and Asia. The word “dualities” in the title of the exhibit reflects the range of influences in the artist’s interests and background – America and Pakistan, Muslim and Christian, East and West, inclusion and exclusion.
Laser-cut black lacquered steel, 24 in. each cube