ISLAMABAD: Works of artist Natasha Malik – the soul breathes differently – featured at the Satrang Gallery and SerenArts, an initiative of the Serena Hotels which is dedicated to supporting and promoting the artists and artisans of Pakistan.
“We are delighted to open the new season with an important exhibition, a solo show by Natasha Malik – the visual artist,” the director said. The soul breathes differently’ is the artist’s second solo show, in which the artist examines the practice of image-making through a deeper investigation of materiality, memory and the creative process leading up to the constructed surface.
How can the intimate workings of ‘thinking’ or ‘thought processes’ transform into a material form, and what explorations take place between the initial thought and the final creative act? Objects from personal archives are a starting point to create a body of work that seeks to reconstruct and rearrange memory, dreams, sights and sensations through visual imagery.
Satrang Gallery Founder Director Asma Rashid Khan said that Natasha Malik’s current body of artworks was the next phase in her journey of exploration. She delves into a deep, personal archive of memories and mementoes to present delicate, multi-layered and multi-media artworks.
She has woven in her favoured motifs and symbols to create a connected and thoughtful oeuvre. Images of the female form, architectural brick structures referencing the home where she grew up, bodies of water surrounded by idyllic gardens and webbed structures, feature within her paintings.
Natasha continues to move within the realm of her interests and question current circumstances and imposed social parameters. The artist examines the process of making, from the first inkling of an idea, up to the creative act itself. Her work analyses the need to solidify those initial passing thoughts and the materiality of the final products.
In her early work, Natasha explored female identity and sexuality developed within the constraints of patriarchy. The imagery of the female form in complex and confining architectural spaces, examined tensions arising from a desire for independence from patriarchal structures.
In her second solo show at the Satrang Art Gallery, the artist examines the practice of image-making through a deeper investigation of materiality, memory and the creative process leading up to the constructed surface. How can the intimate workings of ‘thinking’ or ‘thought processes’ transform into a material form, and what explorations take place between the initial thought and the final creative act?
Objects from personal archives are a starting point to create a body of work that seeks to reconstruct and rearrange memory, dreams, sights and sensations through visual imagery. Natasha Malik received her BFA in 2012 from the National College of Arts, Lahore and her MFA from London’s Slade School of Fine Art in 2015.
Natasha has exhibited her work nationally and internationally. Her first solo show took place at Sanat Gallery in Karachi, 2016. In the same year, she received a Special Commendation from Dentons Art Prize, London. She was also nominated for the Sovereign Asian Art Prize, 2018. In October 2017, she curated her first show ‘Of Other Spaces’, which took place in an abandoned house in Lahore. In 2018, she co-curated a show titled ‘River in an ocean’, a collateral event of the Lahore Biennale.