Anila Quayyum Agha

For her first solo exhibition in Singapore, Anila Quayyum Agha (b. 1965, Lahore, Pakistan) brings together work from new and recent series to address issues of race, gender, colonialism, cultural identity and humanity's relationship to the natural world.
 
Anila Quayyum Agha: The Unraveling, which comes on the heels of solo museum shows in the United States, includes color-saturated collages, immersive large-scale light installations, resin paintings, and intricately embroidered drawings.
 
In 2000, Agha moved to the U.S. from Pakistan where she studied fiber arts. As her work became increasingly sculptural, she began to incorporate other materials into her practice. While still a student at the University of North Texas in the early 2000s Agha was frequently told that as a woman, particularly a woman of color and an immigrant, she would never advance her career if she used techniques associated with craft or visual elements unique to Islamic culture.

But after seeing exhibitions of the subversive embroidered paintings of Egyptian artist Ghada Amer, handsewn story quilts by African-American artist Faith Ringgold, and multimedia installations created using textile techniques by American artists Anne Wilson and Ann Hamilton, Agha knew there was space for the kind of art she wanted to make, which was authentic to her life experiences while also conveying universal truths.

COLLAGES

Anila Quayyum Agha: The Unraveling features vivid new paintings from Agha’s Cabinets of Curiosities series, which reflects the ways in which both individual and collective experiences drive the narratives in her work.
 
Like many people, the pandemic had a profound impact on Agha’s life. At the time, she had recently moved from Indiana in the Midwestern United States to Georgia in the South to teach at Augusta University. Relocating, combined with the isolating effects of the lockdown, left her feeling lonely and secluded. She found solace in simple pleasures: reading and spending time in nature.
 
Immersing herself in the natural world, both physically and in the naturalist literature she consumed, prompted a shift in Agha’s creative practice. This new perspective, one that recognized the interconnectedness of humanity, nature and culture, evolved further during a fellowship at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC in 2020, where she spent countless hours drawing inspiration from the resources of the National Asian Art Museum, The National Museum of the American Indian, and the Natural History Museum.
 
The concept for Cabinets of Curiosities began to form following Agha’s fellowship, when her work was the subject of a solo exhibition (2023) at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, London, where she encountered a colonized perspective on botanical art in Kew’s Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art.
 
Aiming to challenge the representation of nature against the backdrop of colonization, Agha created a series of paper collages, intricately stitched with metallic thread and embellished with beading. She encases the meticulously hand-cut images in layers of clear resin, which gives the surface of each collage a glossy, high-clarity finish. In some works, she introduces an additional layer of imagery, which casts shadows on the layer below it, adding depth and dimension to the composition.
 
“This body of work reflects the colonial impulse to portray non-Western cultures as exotic and primitive while simultaneously extracting resources and ideas for profit,” says Agha. “The vibrant representation of animals and plants celebrates the natural world while reminding us of the disrupted ecosystems and cultures affected by imperial expansion.”

LIGHT INSTALLATIONS

Agha explores related ideas in two sculptural installations that employ the evocative power of light and shadow. Rain Forest, which she created especially for The Unraveling, is an illuminated cube adorned with laser-cut patterns inspired by art spanning diverse regions and eras within the collection of the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto. The imagery reflected on the walls surrounding the installation depicts a verdant jungle replete with flora and fauna, including a tiger stealthily stalking its prey. The layered shadows activate the surrounding environment, creating an immersive, shared experience for viewers—perhaps offering a space for introspection. The almost de-stabilizing effect of the multi-tonal shadows creates a feeling of unease and a sense that a moment of reckoning may be upon us.
 
Agha’s second installation, Stealing Beauty (Steel Garden – After Durer’s A Great Piece of Turf), is an expansive wall relief made from mirrored stainless steel laser-cut with sinuous floral patterns. The composition comprises visual elements from South Asian Islamic culture enmeshed with motifs by the 19th-century British textile designer William Morris, who was inspired by Islamic art and architecture he encountered in his travels. In re-imagining these patterns, Agha considers questions about inspiration versus appropriation and how we often value or legitimize art based on who created it. When activated by multiple light sources, the sculpture casts a lush landscape of botanical forms that seem to flutter on the wall—a metaphor for the tangled complexities of contemporary life.

RESIN PAINTINGS & EMBROIDERED DRAWINGS

Issues of appropriation and fine art versus craft are recurring themes throughout Agah’s work, including in a series of resin paintings and in intimate embroidered drawings.
 
Agha’s vibrant resin works reference the practice of pietra dura, the decorative inlay technique that for centuries was used throughout Europe and eventually in India, most notably in the court of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, who commissioned one of the world’s most exquisite examples of the craft, the Taj Mahal. For Agha, the opulent structure is a source of inspiration and fascination—not just for the sheer beauty of the sumptuously detailed stonework, but the inherent contradiction of one man’s monument to love being directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of unacknowledged craftsmen who built it.

In her luminous drawings on paper, Agha uses hand-stitching and beadwork to highlight the disparities in how we evaluate labor based on gender, ethnicity or economic station. Elaborate patterns articulated in gleaming metallic thread and glass beads play with light and shadow in a manner similar to her sculptures. The works, inspired by memories of her mother’s quilting circles, reference women’s labor, which is often unpaid and unrecognized.
 
“In my artwork, I use a combination of textile processes and sculptural methodologies to question the gendering of women’s works as inherently domesticated and excluded from being considered an art form,” says Agha. “By weaving together these complex and interrelated themes, I invite viewers to reflect, question, and engage with the multifaceted challenges of our time, encouraging empathy, dialogue, and collective action towards a more just and sustainable world.”

ABOUT ANILA QUAYYUM AGHA

Anila Quayyum Agha received a BFA from the National College of Arts, Lahore, and an MFA from the University of North Texas. She resides in Indianapolis, Indiana, practicing as a fulltime artist.

Solo exhibitions of Agha’s work are currently on view in the United States at the Seattle Museum of Art, Washington; and Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Her work has also been exhibited at Asia Society, New York; Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts; Dallas Contemporary and Crow Museum of Asian Art, Dallas, Texas; Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio; Columbia Museum of Art, South Carolina; and Agha Khan Museum, Toronto among many others.
 
Major awards include the 2019 Painters and Sculptors Grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation and the 2021 SARF (Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship). Agha's work was included in the exhibition She Persists in the 2019 Venice Biennale.