Two, Not Together Series
C-type Print
50.8×76.2 cm
2013
Available
Aisha Abid Hussain is an artist who works in a variety of media. Her artworks demonstrate how life extends beyond its own subjective limits and often tells a story about the effects of global cultural interaction over the latter half of the twentieth century. It challenges the binaries we continually reconstruct between Self and Other, between our own ‘cannibal’ and ‘civilized’ selves. By parodying mass media by exaggerating certain formal aspects inherent to our contemporary society, she makes works that can be seen as self-portraits. Sometimes they appear idiosyncratic and quirky, at other times, they seem typical by-products of American superabundance and marketing.
This latest series of photographs Two, Not Together continues with her interest in gender discourse but layers of cultural specific symbolism embodies it to be more interesting and complex. Her keen interest in human relationships with one another and to one’s surroundings inspired her hugely. The series is a satire, an attempt to start a debate regarding the institution of marriage. It is an effort to investigate the idea of marriage, is it not becoming a utopian concept in the present time and age? In this series of staged photographs she is trying to create the nostalgia with an intended pun that she feels while looking at old photographs of family members getting married.
Her works are saturated with obviousness, mental inertia, clichés and bad jokes. They question the coerciveness that is derived from the more profound meaning and the superficial aesthetic appearance of an image.
Living and working in Lahore, Aisha Abid Hussain holds a MA(with Merit) in Fine Arts from Goldsmiths College, University of London and a BFA(with Honours) from the National College of Arts, Lahore, Pakistan. She is currently an Assistant Professor at National College of Arts and Faculty at Beaconhouse National University, Lahore.
Image Courtesy | Aisha Abid Hussain