Anila Quayyum Agha: Interwoven

Anila Quayyum Agha: Interwoven spans two decades of the Pakistani American artist's multifaceted practice across media including immersive installations, works on paper, paintings, and sculptures.

Born in Lahore in 1965, Agha moved to the United States in 1999 and now resides in Indianapolis. Her experiences as a woman and an immigrant dealing with discrimination, invisibility, and oppression inform her art, as does environmental devastation and its disproportionate impact on the Global South. Her influences include the California Light and Space Movement, Indo-Islamic architecture, poetry, and the patterns and techniques of traditional crafts.

Interwoven encompasses Agha's multifaceted practice of immersive installations, works on paper, paintings, and sculptures. Highlights of this exhibition include A Flood of Tears, a hanging sculpture made of hundreds of upholstery needles suspended by glistening glass-beaded strands, and one of her signature laser-cut steel light boxes that bathe viewers in light and shadow. These renowned installations are contextualized with the artist's two-dimensional works that utilize a mix of patterns and words, printmaking techniques, dyes, beads, threads, Mylar, waxes, and even steel dust to make ornate forms. Through these lyrical, mesmerizing works of art, Agha wrestles with some of the most urgent issues of our time.