Saubiya Chasmawala’s Second Solo Exhibition in Mumbai Revels in the Result of an Intuitive Performance
Saubiya Chasmawala, Untitled #1, 2019
Bātin is Saubiya Chasmawala’s second solo exhibition in Mumbai and first at TARQ. A marked departure from her previous show, Saubiya explores more abstract gestures while developing her interaction with Arabic scripture. These works recount her own childhood memory of reciting verses while looking at the scripture, yet not being able to truly learn them. By virtue of her repetitive and layered calligraphic brush strokes, her work seems to emulate the essence of that childhood memory, an obscuration of the written word, replaced by a repetition.
Saubiya Chasmawala, Untitled #14, 2019
Bātin aesthetically draws the viewer’s mind to the action painting of the Abstract Expressionists, and the catalogue and the artist’s description of her process support this comparison. Placing her work surface on the floor and moving across it while painting, what one is actually looking at in the gallery is the output of Saubiya’s performance. Described as an “intuitive, introspective, almost meditative mark making process” the methodology creates art that is driven and controlled not only by the artist’s skill but also her environment, the limitations of her studio space and the reality of that constraint.
Saubiya Chasmawala, Untitled #19, 2019
The exhibition features two distinct sets of artworks, all of which are painted using calligraphy pens and ink or natural dyes. A series of smaller framed artworks indicates Saubiya’s experimental movements, drafting various Arabic letters in a range of colours, and the frame binds these pieces together as formal investigations. The large artworks are painted on cartridge and pinned to the wall, while staying open to the elements. The rigour of the artist’s movements and the ink itself cause slight rips on the paper, once mounted there is a clear warp in the cartridge, one which would have been lost had the gallery and artist chosen to frame these. The larger works seem limitless and unbound, while the smaller works look inwards and complete.
Saubiya Chasmawala, Untitled #7, 2019
On the gallery’s first floor is a larger cartridge suspended from the ceiling adorned in what seems to be yellow paint. Like all of Saubiya’s work on display, one really has to look to understand what we are seeing. The yellow is actually derived from a saffron paste that was reminiscent of a mixture the artist’s grandmother used to make. Much like the recitation of words that she could not read, Saubiya takes this memory and puts it into motion in her art.
Using a seemingly traditional and everyday medium, the impact of the work would have benefitted from some indicators of the artist’s tools or visualisation of the performance of painting. Instead it is left to the imagination of the viewer to believe the narrative of the performance.
It is a curious state of art where we talk endlessly about process yet we only ever see the final product and choose to believe that the process exists. The final artwork becomes a celebration of that process. Shifting the question from what is art to where is the art? If it is in the performance and act of painting then how does admiring a painting in a gallery address the art.
Art has served its purpose if it inspires a conversation beyond the confines of its four edges, and Saubiya Chasmawala’s Bātin, while not directly inspiring inquiry, does make the viewer think.
On view until 23 November, 2019, the exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue featuring an essay by Skye Arundhati Thomas.
Text by Devanshi Shah
Images: Courtesy of Saubiya Chasmawala and TARQ
© Saubiya Chasmawala
