hamra abbas

God Grows on Trees (2008) consists of 99 individual portraits of children and a diasec digital print. The portraits of the children were painted over a year and informed by my visits to Madrassahs (religious schools) in Pakistan. Viewing the current fascination with Madrassahs as being akin to the orientalist painters’ fascination in the 19th and early 20th centuries with the harem, I attempt to thwart these exoticised readings to portray the universality of childhood experience. In painting the portraits I attempt to reproduce the faces as faithfully as I could, marrying realism with the techniques of miniature. The digital print was added to the work later. This is a photograph of trees along a road in Lahore, that are nailed with metal plates which reproduce the 99 names or attributes of God in Islamic tradition, and in fact gave the work its title as well. Also to my fascination is the ubiquity of the number 99 in the incongruous context of a psychologically critical pricing point in consumer society.

In Please do not step 2 (2008) Hamra Abbas uses thin interlacing strips of paper to form the Arabian stalactite work that has been stuck to the floor of the gallery. This dramatic and at the same time delicate and ephemeral work is around 30 meters long and crosses the natural path followed by visitors to the exhibition. In the form of a text, it traces out clear message, despite its size, whispers ‘Please do not step”. Enrique Martinez

Abbas works in many different media, inventing, intriguing, and critical, ways to comment on conventional ideas. In Paper Plates (2008), her target is the ‘skewed dynamics of cultural consumption’. Thin strips of paper have been printed with the phrase, ‘Please get served’, endlessly repeated. Discs of paper collage were made by combining the strips in complex geometrical patterns, which are recognisably Islamic. The discs were then hot-pressed into paper plates, a part of everyday life in every continent. The plates, though, are full of holes and cannot be used to ‘get served’. Tim Stanley

Lessons on Love, in its first incarnation in 2004, was shaped in unfired clay. The image was culled from a coffee table volume of erotic miniatures that showed an amorous couple entwined in the acts of lovemaking and hunting. The political balancing act between lovemaking and violence at play in the work was brought to the fore when a series of three similar couples were made for the Istanbul Biennial (2007). On this occasion three sculptures were fashioned out of hundreds of kilograms of brightly coloured Plasticine – the material’s overt playfulness and malleability lent the work an exaggerated dynamism, drawing out the discomfort of the figures’ conflict-ridden pose with a palpable sense of amusement. Hammad Nasar

Read is a multi-media installation, a suspended labyrinth-like wooden structure, concealing speakers playing the sound of children reciting the Qur’an as they memorize its verses, the standard method of instruction in Pakistan’s madrassahs. The title of the work comes from the command that the prophet Mohammad was said to have been given by God when the Qur’an was revealed to him. Abbas has structured the work so that the viewer must walk through the labyrinth, close to the speakers, offering them an immersive experience of the work. In Read the cacophony of sound filtering through the speakers, of children reciting the Qur’anic verses, is not the orderly regimented harmony that might be expected. Indeed, the chaotic babble is reminiscent of the sounds of a large number of noisy children gathered together anywhere in the world.

Battle Scenes (2006) references a pair of miniature paintings from The Akbarnama (c.1590), a 16th Century Mughal album chronicling the life of the third Mughal Emperor Akbar. These paintings depict a gruesome battle between the emperor Akbar’s army and his warring enemies, and are typical of those produced by his imperial atelier. Working in the post 9/11 context, Abbas draws on imagery from The Akbarnama to undertake a critique of war and contemporary systems of neo-imperialism. Following the diptych form and compositional arrangement of the paintings found in The Akbarnama, Abbas’ animated work depicts an array of figures of different ages, genders and ethnic backgrounds, dressed in jeans and T-shirts, posed warrior-like against a black background. For this work Abbas persuaded visitors at various London parks to pose for her; her subjects representing a cosmopolitan snapshot of London. Haema Sivanesan

Left Right (2006) is an outcome of the Vasl International Artists Workshop, Gadani, Pakistan

MoMA is the Star (2004) is based on the footage made outside the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin on the last day of the exhibition MoMA in Berlin – ‘the art event of 2004′. MoMA in Berlin was made possible due to the extensive renovation and expansion of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, and was visited by an unexpected number of 1.2 million visitors in the 7 month (February 20 – September 19, 2004) duration of the exhibition. video clip

In All Right Reserved (2004), the blatant reproduction of the exhibition catalogue’s copyright page wrenches into the public domain Abbas’ concerns over authority and control. By flouting the explicit demands of the copyright holders, the work transforms itself into an eloquent comment on the movement of cultural property, and questions whether it is indeed possible or desirable to retain any degree of autonomy over a work of art. Sophie Gordon

In Please do not step (2004) Abbas creates a territory where art is rescued from the archives of sacred books and translation is mirrored in shades. While the collage of geometric paper tiles reminds the audience upon entering the space to Please do not step, one’s attention is immediately drawn towards the four paintings… Simone Wille