Creating Silence Out Of Noise: On Saba Hasan's Works

Review

The pioneer of Abstract Art, Wassily Kandinsky gives us a manifesto of abstract art titled ‘Concerning Spiritual in Art’ and reading this is a blissful delight.  Perhaps it is not about spirituality only, but about a dual effect that one has after seeing an abstract work. One is the physical form and another is the effect created out of process, form or style which provokes an inner resonance.

This state of ‘Spirituality’ and ‘Duality’ rings in me again, when I stepped into the solo showcasing of ‘Mixed media works’ by one of the significant Delhi based abstract artist, Saba Hasan at Gallery Art Konsult, Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi. The collection consists of relief paintings, installations and book objects, a result of last five years of work, which stems from the technique/process that the artist has developed towards her unique visual vocabulary.

Nine book installation, Variable, Mixed media 

Saba has always been experimental in her approach towards mediums, materials, forms and the process of experimenting itself. One of the discoveries in her art lies in the ‘materials’ she uses; as plaster, clay, cement, soot, nails, ropes, jute, leaves, shells, pebbles, templates, dried grass, paper pulp, scripts, gunny fragments, books, boxes etc. are tangible, palpable and organic. After the materials, the other special feature is her intention of using them into works as she says, ‘I continue to touch upon the possibilities which often transcend our cognitive powers and leave us uncertain for multiple interpretations, yet doubtful of the real meaning, often tentative and even afraid’. This is somewhat an invitation to the viewers to inter into each work by leaving space for their own interpretations so that a feel of infinity has created, which has always been a pivotal point of ‘Spirituality’, an essence of Abstraction and abstract art. 

In Abstraction, artistic creation comprises a set of processes, which relate to the activity of the artist and spectator at once. Artistic processes are meditated experiences that opens up the world, thus success of a work of art lies in reality beyond the actual reality; it suggest an unknown world using the means and signs of the known world. And means of creation develops towards the changing time and tools which brings change in form also. Artist and viewer follow these various processes of abstraction at different levels, in the definition of means of creation, representation and perception. All these, one may view in conjunction of Saba’s mix medias where each work says of painstakingly achieved layers with binding agents those have been allowed to dry naturally, revealing cracks, wrinkles and bubbles. Material is kneaded, mixed and molded onto surface of canvas which later on exposed to the sun and rain for natural drying, weathering etc. In a few canvases surface is given to brown and grey stains created out of natural materials like tea and soot for giving depth or a sense of age. Books are wrapped, fossilized, dipped out, burnt, cut up, tied up, petrified, locked away and some embalmed for posterity.

Mystical Storm, Mix media on canvas

The undulating surfaces of canvas or even of book objects resemble geological formations as if artist is trying to map the connection of body, mind and soul. Text has been used both as ‘material’ in the form of torn strips and as a ‘image’ when they are inscribed on surface, but in both ways it seems embedded in knowledge of ‘world’ and ‘word’, a repository of history and lived traditions. Use of English goes until Urdu that opens Saba’s own personal diary which is not an attempt to collapse borders but endeavor to speak from the heart of an insider.

Inspiration for Abstraction to Saba comes from leading Abstract Artists like J. Swaminathan who has taken a lead role in forming one of major school of Abstraction in India, Somnath Hore and Mark Rothko to name a few. She relates to Swaminathan’s celebration of freedom, Hore’s simplicity that reaches to the core of feelings and Rothko’s obsession with death. Stories by Mahashweta Devi, poems by revolutionary Faiz, Galib and songs by Bob Dylan are other sources.

Saba immerses herself deeply with a single thought that can communicate to her canvas/work in a different way which makes her art like meditation. It seems to construct a universe beyond the concrete, voluminous or tetrahedron. It oscillates between the ‘freedom’ and ‘parochialism’ both, elevating and embellishing its account by taking from each.  For instance, books those are tied up and kept in the boxes, open themselves for various means by moderation. And that is what opens immense possibilities dwell upon dualities, here it comes back to the notion of ‘Spirituality’ and ‘Duality’, that I have mentioned in the beginning, with which one can trace upon various aspects of Saba’s works. 

Book of Disquiet, Mix media

As Saba observes, both the worlds, ‘within’ and ‘without’ try to bring an emotive visceral response rather than an objective view of reality which simultaneously captures inside and outside. The process of creation also incorporates ‘spontaneity’ within ‘deliberation’ by use of ‘image’ and ‘text’ both as contrary and adscititious which doesn’t reveal the intention of ‘juxtaposition’. For example as a material nails could be metaphor of some gossamer yet deep delved feel as pain, violence and construction and using them within impasto kind of treatment with colors are merely creating ‘a book of disquiet’. Here tactility of material is prevalent still it seems to have a voice which is like expecting absence out of presence, expressing serenity out of strained city life and creating silence out of noise.

Image Courtesy: Gallery Art Konsult

Originally published in Art&Deal Magazine, Issue 47/vol.8 No.17/Mar-Apr, 2012