Mahmud Husain

In collaboration with the Seagull India Arts Foundation,  Mahmud Husain’s inaugural Canadian exhibition, “Steeped in Sanskriti” runs from August 13 - September 30

Artist Statement:

My works are concerned with representing childhood memories, fleeting reveries and human interaction. Interwoven, these elements create a complex world of interconnected existences. Objects and relationships coincide with tones of nostalgia in the same pictorial field. Elements and experiences from my childhood, hidden in a pool of memories, appear in the paintings and bridge my perceptions of past, present and future.

In this new series, entitled ‘Inner Landscape’, I am trying to initiate a communication with my viewers on a personal and psychological level through these fantastical landscapes of the mind. The landscape is as much a topographical fact as it is a projection of our imagination and experiences. These landscapes tend to exceed the physical and geographic presence that a landscape embodies, making it a partially imagined entity. Since every viewer responds through their own sensibilities, experiences and tastes, rooted in their subconscious and imagination, my visions of landscape communicate and harmonize with the viewer on many levels.

Through the mingling of forms and space, I aim to create new rhythmic tension along the surface of the pictorial plane. I do this through the careful distribution of the forms and lines that make up my visual language. I find traditional Indian miniatures a great source of inspiration as they address a similar arrangement of shallow planes and dense figures. I try to absorb their antiquated techniques by studying their multiple investments of singular spaces.

Mahmud Husain, 2009.