Anusheh Zia & Laila Tara H | Sky-Circles

15 July - 20 August 2021

indigo+madder is thrilled to announce Sky-Circles, an exhibition that brings together works by Anusheh Zia and Laila Tara H.

Together, the mixed media paintings and installations explore ideas related to the body, spaces, emotions and the experience of time. Taking its title from the poem Sky-Circles by Rumi, the exhibition dwells on our shared experiences over the past year and lessons learned, while exploring new ways of belonging and association—gathering lost and newfound intimacies along the way. The works capture moments of grief, carve out spaces of succour and explore transformation, enabled through moments of quietude and reflection.

In Retrospective Falsification, Laila examines personal memories, nostalgic longing and moments that enable change. She juxtaposes universal forms from childhood drawings- trees, sun, flowers, with doubled figures, that stare ahead, contemplative, on the cusp of metamorphoses and ‘re-entry’ into the world. The work explores feelings of grief, anticipation and longing and examines how memories of the past are always altered and more idealised than reality. Symbolic forms and multiple, concurrent narratives punctuate the space. Laila’s practice is infused with a visual language borrowed from Indo-Persian miniature painting. A complex history of migration, and an amalgam of painting traditions gave birth to these hybrid styles in the 17th century. The period saw many painters travel from Persia to the Mughal Court and the Deccan in India, through established shipping or overland routes. Laila’s Iranian heritage, and childhood years spent in Delhi, not only exposed her to these forms, but have also inspired the language through which she articulates her own history of living in different cultural settings. Utilising these historical techniques, her works explore the body and the self, through experiments in scale and negative space. Detailed figures suspended amidst contemporary urban scenes, disjointed limbs amidst delicate foliage, are all arranged in stark, startling compositions that challenge stylistic cannons and stretch boundaries. She often cuts and folds paper, puncturing and destabilising space to introduce new three-dimensional depth and shadow play.

In I’ve only seen you in 1s and 0s s disembodied heads arranged alongside organic and architectonic forms, play with negative space and construct a web-like surface. The shapes, painted on natural hemp paper sourced from Sanganer, India, explore a range of emotions, and create a charged surface where the tension between form and formlessness; the object and its surrounding emptiness, plays out. Laila mostly uses pigments that are either naturally derived, or prepared using traditional methods from found materials—these range from crushed red London bricks; walnut ink; madder red pigment; deep blue lapis lazuli from Badakhshan province of Afghanistan, sourced from Florence and ochres from Iran, collected from the island of Hormoz.

Anusheh’s multidisciplinary practice similarly involves extensive use of natural pigments and materials to create subtle compositions that reference the natural environment and various emotional states. The exhibition includes a series of paintings made using turmeric, olive leaf and pomegranate seeds in their ground state. Each material is meticulously rubbed by hand onto the canvas, which becomes deeply marked through repetitive motion. In Warm milk drink, the surface is covered with layers of turmeric, which gradually accumulate, ultimately developing a glowing, ethereal tone. The materials themselves are imbued with history—turmeric is mixed with milk and spices for a home-made nourishing remedy that has been used in South Asia for centuries, to heal and offer warmth. Both olives and pomegranates also carry deep cultural and spiritual associations. A light year through one of seven skies, again, playing with elemental geometries, is made with pigment derived from pomegranate seed. The pigment, applied in such a way that it rises, deepens and ebbs into various shades of warm crimson, is reminiscent of the colours of the sky.

Exploring personal space and spirituality, Anusheh’s installation Lavender uses sight, smell and touch to evoke memory. It dwells on the passage of time, and conveys a sensitivity to the natural environment. Inspired by Islamic prayer rugs, the work embodies several material and symbolic meanings. Often musealised or orientalised in museum collections, Lavender reminds us that prayer rugs are also connected to rituals, temporal memory and daily life. They not only aestheticize space—rugs function as architectural components that delineate space in a terrain. Through scale and design, they help isolate and frame the body. A prayer rug acts as portable ground, creating space through the mediating power of a ritual, to build the bridge between the metaphysical and physical. Lavender is made by building up layer upon layer of richly fragrant dried lavender flowers. As they accumulate, a deep violet tone begins to build up, and spreads outwards from a single, narrow, woven, tasselled end. The presence of the body is indicated, as themes of impermanence, and of endings and new beginnings emerge.

The works in the exhibition capture moments of transformation, push boundaries, while envisaging something fulfilling and healing. They imagine new ways of being with each other, collective energies and kind, tender and intimate geographies—all ingredients for creating new spaces that we all long for.

Anusheh Zia (b. 1994) is a London-based artist working across photography, sound, installation, painting, film and ceramics. She received her BA (2016) in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, and a Postgraduate Diploma (2017) in Arabic from SOAS University.

Anusheh's work draws from systems and structures of spiritual practice in the Islamic faith, which she explores in relation to concepts of time and the natural world. Anusheh's group exhibitions include Sky-Circles, indigo+madder, London 2021; Copeland Gallery, Peckham, London, 2020; Toward a New Spirituality, Lumen Crypt Gallery, Bethnal Green, London, 2020; Where is God in our 21st Century World?, Oxo Tower Wharf, South Bank, London, 2018; Distributed Monuments, Geddes Gallery, Caledonian Road, London, 2016, amongst others. Her collaborative projects include Staff of Life, film commission by BBC New Creatives with the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) London, 2019.

Laila Tara H (b. 1995) is a British-Iranian artist, based between London and Tehran. She received her MA (2019) in Persian and Indian Miniature painting from The Prince’s School of Traditional Arts. Raised across the world, she paints largely autobiographical reflections of a life navigating cultures. Her practice is rooted in traditional methods and materials.

Laila's exhibitions include Sky-Circles, indigo+madder, London 2021; (solo) Am I?, V.O. Curations, London 2021; Legacy Series: FUTURE, Arteeast, 2021; Nourishment Projects, V.O. Curations, London, 2020; So Good So Close, Numeroventi, Florence, Italy, 2020; Dance First Think Later, General Practice Gallery, Lincoln, UK, 2020; To All Our Absent Dialogues, Warbling Collective, 145a Gallery, London, 2020; Royal Miniature Society, Mall Galleries, London 2019; Carpet Pages II: Roots, Mile End Pavilion, London, 2019, amongst others. Her residencies include Casa Balandra, Mallorca, Spain, 2020; Numeroventi, Florence, Italy, 2020 and Studio Escalier, Argenton, Chateau, France, 2016.

SELECTED WORKS