Rooted in narratives of human fragility and survival, Pakistani-Australian artist Mehwish Iqbal explores themes such as immigration and the diaspora in her work. Her textile and paper-based artworks touch on issues of human agency, power-plays, hybrid identity, courage, freedom and womanhood.
Read MoreIqbal was born in Sangla Hill, Pakistan and Raised in a Punjab village before moving to the regional capital, Lahore. Iqbal developed an interest in the surrounding animal life and nature of her childhood which endures in her art's exploration of natural themes. Her strong belief in the role of women in society was also instilled by her being raised by strong women, particularly her grandmother who lived through the Partition of Pakistan.
After completing a BFA in painting at the National College of Arts in Lahore in 2002, Iqbal moved to Dubai, and later, in 2006, to Australia. Her experience as a migrant, moving between these places and navigating life in foreign lands is foundational to her art.
In 2011 Iqbal completed her MA in printmaking at the University of New South Wales, swiftly followed by a residency at The Art Student League in New York. Settled in Sydney, Iqbal has made return trips to Pakistan, and taken residencies in Turkey and the United States, creating the opportunity to see global disparities of wealth and the value placed on human life.
Iqbal combines printmaking techniques with textiles, tempera painting and ceramics to create unconventional, fragile artworks and installations. Drawing upon personal experiences and research into displaced and migrant communities, past and present, Iqbal's art discusses the fragility of individual identity and the power of community when navigating change.
In 2011, Iqbal produced the installation, Silence of the Sea, comprising a swarm of 5000 paper boats suspended by fishing line.
What starts as a thin trail of boats, leads into a cube-like concentration, depicting the solidity of Australia as a nation built through successive migrations. The boats together represent collective strength, resilience and unity, while each paper boat, taken on its own, represents the fragility and vulnerability of the individual.
A later rendition for Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre's Australian Muslim Women's Art Project, in 2012, incorporated the colour blue to represent sea and sky, referencing the endless horizon conversely associated with danger and adventurous optimism.
Iqbal also creates smaller-scale sculptural objects loaded with meaning and references to traditional crafts. In Forcefield of Complex Journeys (2016), Iqbal presents 12 white porcelain casts of her own leg engraved with symbols and text. Referencing the perilous journeys travelled by women on foot, the sculptures are inspired by the meetings with refugee and migrant women.
In The Last Prayer (2017) Iqbal cast 3500 collected date seeds in porcelain and hand-engraved each one, referencing South Asian traditions where women gather to pray, contributing a date seed to a central pile. Letters to My Mother (2017), comprising hand-carved raw charcoal pieces etched with words in English and Urdu, pays homage to the artists' estranged mother. When Iqbal's mother would return home each year, she would cook meals over a charcoal stove.
Iqbal is also known for her densely-layered mixed media wall assemblages that incorporate, painting, printing and embroidery. In the four-metre-long Assemblage of a Fragmented Landscape (2020), the artist builds on a ground of dressmaker's paper, depicting with embroidery, paint, printing and silver-leaf, a procession of human figures surrounded by animal life.
Opposing figures sit at each end: a crouching red pregnant woman symbolises care and nurturing, while a vicious blue wolf at the other polices and protects. Iqbal's imagery draws parallels between human behaviour and the natural world. Proliferations of birds and insects, suggest global migratory patterns of people.
In 2021 Iqbal installed Grey Wall (2020–21), a work comprising 50,000 paper cut-out human silhouettes, along a wall in Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art Australia for the biennial survey, The National 2021.
Made from recycled tissue paper, newsprint and dressmakers paper, and painted over with several layers of wash, the densely-layered figures are part of surging clusters and waves. Each fragile figure, however, retains their individuality within the mass, exploring the challenges to identity faced by migrating individuals.
Mehwish Iqbal has been the subject of both solo and group exhibitions.
Solo exhibitions include: Laa Makaan, Yavuz Gallery, Sydney (2022); Flux, M. Contemporary, Sydney (2017); Introspection of Sacred Space, Halka Arts Project Gallery, Istanbul (2014); Silent Diaspora, Paper Plane Gallery, Sydney (2012).
Group exhibitions include: The National 2021: New Australian Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney (2021); Diaspora Making Machines, Blacktown Arts Centre, Sydney (2016); The Only Daughter, International Museum For Women, San Francisco (2013).
Mehwish Iqbal's website can be found here and Mehwish Iqbal's Instagram can be found here.
Michael Irwin | Ocula | 2023
