Zehra Khan, “I Enable The Fur Improve Out,” acrylic paint on self, 2010
“I focus on the entire body as portion, and apart, of the natural environment. Even though I try to integrate with the surroundings, the situations of getting human limit me.” — Zehra Khan
I was released to Zehra Khan’s artwork prior to the lockdown in 2020, at “Fakeries,” her solo exhibition at Tiger Strikes Asteroid Chicago. I was taken with the gilded and fairytale-like nonetheless humorous and obtainable mother nature of her scorching glue and gold leaf wall tapestries. I was also impressed with a studying function programmed in conjunction with Khan’s exhibition, “Praxis + Liberation, a reading through,” generated by Char Lee, as a dialogue about apply, which is the connective tissue of their shared function. Newcity spoke to Khan about this multidimensionality, which is a considerate reflection of a loaded, product-driven, and generous strategy to a restless studio exercise.
“Golden Perpetrator,” Zehra Khan, acrylic paint on incredibly hot glue, 24 inches x 23 inches, 2019.
The place did you shell out your formative years? How lengthy have you been based in Chicago? How does possibly inform the do the job you make, or not?
I was born in Indonesia in 1983. My Pakistani father was doing work as an architect, and my mom was a diplomat from Idaho. Going for my parents’ professions led us to Paris for 7 years, Switzerland for 3, just before going to Lexington, Massachusetts at age eleven.
I went to Skidmore Faculty, graduated in 2004. Then I obtained my MFA from the Massachusetts University of Art & Design in 2009, at a low-residency program at the Fantastic Arts Do the job Middle in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Just after graduating, I moved to Provincetown comprehensive-time for 10 yrs, where I designed artwork and worked odd employment generally as an artist assistant, which is what I however do.
I appreciate attending art residencies and have been to a dozen or so. In 2018 I attended an artwork residency at Ox-Bow, which introduced me to lots of Chicago artists. They persuaded me it was feasible to are living in the metropolis and uncover an inventive local community. I moved to Chicago a couple months later.
Jaclyn Jacunski was my studio mate, which has sparked a friendship and inventive dialogue.
I initially related to Chicago by assembly Julia Klein at a residency at the Vermont Studio Centre in 2012. (Julia Klein launched Soberscove Press in 2009, a Chicago-based impartial push that publishes publications about art and culture.) Julia volunteered to be a performer in a venture I was doing work on at the time, “Johnny Flea and his Merry Maniacs Present The Circus,” and afterwards I produced a children’s guide with her publishing organization, Soberscove Press, with the e-book “A Sunny Working day for Flowers.”
What are your recent pursuits? Or what are you looking at, looking at, smelling, feeding on, or listening to that you are enthusiastic about? How is this informing your work?
I’m continually seeing “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” Fascinated by the presentation of gender. I am quite intrigued in what helps make a lady or what is valued as feminine… As RuPaul suggests, “We are all born bare and the rest is drag.”
Portray on mates makes a social and collaborative aspect to building art. I desired to break out of my solitary portray follow and interact with individuals differently in my studio. I generally doodled and drew on myself and good friends as a way to enjoy and be casual, and as an act of have confidence in and passion.
Physique-portray puts immediate constraints on the portray session: work speedy, react to the needs of the painted individual or natural environment, and embrace the spontaneous. These are reminders to believe in my intestine, and the process informs my perform in every medium.
Animals evoke fairytales, fables, spiritual deities and ceremonies. Making use of animals as protagonists permits for the viewer to length them selves. My creatures act like people, with the identical practices and foibles. Rats turned a specific most loved subject matter for the reason that of the strong response they bring about in the viewer. Seeing one particular creature as opposed to a swarm.
What supplies do you function with?
I like to use components readily available on hand: identified elements, trash all over my studio, and recycled paper and cardboard. I favor small-tech elements and practices. I appreciate the uniqueness inherent in objects that are built by hand that reveal the faults and deviations.
What are some the latest assignments that you participated in? I believed your new on the internet overall performance, presented by The Relocating Corporation and arranged by Essex Flowers, appeared definitely attention-grabbing and I’d enjoy to find out additional about that.
I participated in a efficiency Zoom-sharing celebration. It was incredibly interesting producing a performance in my house, as opposed to in a studio or gallery. My performance was named “Indoor Gentle Generating.” I painted on myself with acrylic paint, in an endeavor to combine within just a nest of paintings and drawings on bedsheets.
Zehra Khan, “Indoor Gentle Earning,” ink and acrylic paint on bedsheets and self, dwell efficiency on Zoom, January 24, 2021
I’ll test to explain your live digital overall performance: painting dots on by yourself although immersed in a nest of sheets protected in a hand painted polka-dot or pointillist style. As you paint dots on your entire body they start off to vibrate from the patterned drapery. The proliferation of dots in the foreground and history come to be camouflage and edges in between determine and place blur. It generates a rich and confounding virtual house that flattens 2D and 3D place. It reminds me of Yayoi Kusama’s Physique Competition “polka dot happenings” and portray on women’s bodies. I uncovered this to be a playful nonetheless intimate and interactive response to the quarantine and remote mother nature of the previous year. Also the way you make eye call with the camera or viewer would make me informed of my very own looking or gaze, I am drawn to artwork that pulls me out of myself to have recognition of my perception. I am impressed by your unique way of organically weaving elements, experiences, and relationships together fluidly.
I commenced painting on people lengthy in the past, and realized that the act itself was intensely own, and usually a private studio practice. I began experimenting with painting on people with an viewers, inviting them into a variety of surreal look at my inventive system. In outcome getting rid of and divulging my approach. I have carried out three dwell performances at art openings, starting with a person at Gallery Ehva in Provincetown, Massachusetts in 2010. Kusama is a substantial impact with her surreal playfulness. I am very intrigued in intimacy and dwelling, which led me to do the job on bedsheets, blankets and make quilts.
Zehra Khan, “Oh Shit Quilt,” sculpture: acrylic paint and staples on paper collage, 54 x 96″, double-sided, 2016
What are you performing on now?
I’m working on a Chicago cityscape job for set up in the MANA library home windows. I have generally been fascinated by the make-up of the town, the stacking and clashing shapes of buildings, scaffolding and bridges. My sizzling glue shapes mimic the skyline observed from the window, although emphasizing abstract designs.
I established a comparable undertaking in the course of my art residency at Tiger Strikes Asteroid final February, when I mounted incredibly hot glue styles on to the window of the gallery. My forthcoming undertaking in the library delivers a absolutely distinct view… A extensive vista of the Chicago skyline.
And you have invited artist Jaclyn Jacunski to have a solo exhibition that opened in May well 2021 at Tiger Strikes Asteroid Chicago. Notify me more about what you see in Jacunski’s get the job done and why you chosen it for TSA.
Jaclyn’s do the job requires interaction. I was promptly drawn to her operate with reflective surfaces and bedazzled chain website link fences. Jaclyn explores the visible language of barriers, and is influenced by the politics inherent with residing in Chicago.
“Jaclyn Jacunski: Burning Oneself Out” is at Tiger Strikes Asteroid Chicago, 2233 South Throop, Unit 419, through June 26.