Capturing the migrant story in collages

Perth-based artist Hitesh Natwala recently showed his exhibition of new works titles Paksploytation at Gallery Barry Keldoulis. He spoke to Shivangi Ambani-Gandhi about the vivid and diverse imagery he has employed in the new works.

Q. There are quite a few different themes running through the series in this exhibition – is there a thread of thought linking the works?

Most of these works were based on my experiences in India when I was there for a show for Chatterjee & Lal. The works may look unconnected, but that is because my visit to India entails a myriad of experiences.

Q. I understand the title of the show, Paksploytation is a combination of Pakistan + exploitation? What is the story behind this title?

The title came from the genre blacksploytation movies from the 60s and 70s that were mostly black and came out of America. I loved these movies. In fact, they remind me of bollywood movies because of their heightened sense of drama and all the tacky Dushum Dushum.

Q. Please tell us about the Agni, Akash... series and the films you have picked for these works

The series of posters were chosen partly because they were movies I loved as a child. The poster for Agni was chosen for its graphic, because it seemed to encapsulate the title of the show. Stragely this one ended up being one of my favourite pieces in the show.

Q Tell us about the use of self portraits in these works. Was it fun painting yourself as a muscular, Hollywood star?

It was a lot of fun painting myself as a muscular hero, though I am not fooling myself or anyone else I am sure. I have been painting myself in the works for a couple of years now and I do it in order to represent the Indian in the world at large. It is why I am dressed in typical travellers garb, the hat and the puffer jacket.

Our communities are getting out in the world, both as migrants and as tourists without economic or political reasons. In the case of my family and others in our community in London, we are the first generation to be able to do that.

Q. Why are these works names after the five elements?

The elements were about further developing the overlaying of East & West and hence hinting at the developing of an in-between culture as so many of us Indian have had to do living and working in the western world.

In the Indian elements are 4 of the 5 basic elements important to human life as taught to us by Hinduism: Water, Earth, Sky and Air (roughly) and in the posters are the 4 main elements important to modern western life, namely sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll and fashion.

The African masks in these works hint at the place where I was born and the Australian women’s magazine (used as the backdrop) reflects where I live now.

Q. The use of womens’ magazines seems to be a continuing fascination for you. Is your house piled up with old magazines?

I have used old bits of paper ever since I was at art school and had a love of Kurt Schwitters and the art of collage. I found these Australian Women’s Magazines from the 50s and 60s a few years ago in a former studio. I loved them and wanted to use them in my art.

When I started the recent works and wanted to layer reference points from all the different cultures I have experienced, it seemed like the perfect time to be using these magazines as part of the Australian experience.

And yes, I do have a lot of old magazines, books and odd bits of paper which i have to take wherever I move (Hitesh recently moved from Sydney to Perth).


Q. These works are also quite a significant departure from your earlier sticky dot works... what drove the change?

The difference in these works and the series I did for the India show is that they are partially worked in the computer. In a former life I was a professional illustrator and missed using those skills. I enjoyed introducing this medium as a fresh new layer in my works. I also think the brightly-coloured graphical nature of computer imagery fits in well within my aesthetic interests.

Q. The floral works... Blue Columbine, Magnolia, Red Canna and Brevipetala... look like a more meticulous and detailed version of your previous floral works. Tell us about these works.

I wanted to look at flowers that grow relatively near me and blow them up to look at them on a larger scale. As a reminder of their beauty obviously but also as a way of saying that issues regarding the nature are looming large, with so much of land clearing happening for thousands of miles around Perth. The shapes around the flowers represent old fences, fencing in nature as if in a bid to control it.

Q. Why do you work with sticky dots? Is there a meditative quality to your craft of sticking dots?

My father was an accountant and the punching of the holes harks back to the days when I would help him with his accountancy practice at home by punching and tilling paper.

I love the idea of crafting of crafting my art—it is reminiscent of how so much both Indian and African arts and crafts have that carefully crafted and highly colourful qualities.

Q. The amoebic images in "He gave a gentle little nudge towards it" and "And everyone seemed to be talking at once" are quite similar to your previous abstract work. What those images mean to you?

These works followed the flower pieces and came about when looking closely at the flowers. I noticed a bee sitting on one of them. I then decided to try and design some abstracts that encapsulate those fleeting moments in nature we all observe. They are ephemeral, but momentous and remind us of the fragile beauty of nature.

Works from Paksployation can be viewed at:www.gbk.com.au/artists/hitesh-natalwala/paksploytation

Hitesh will also show at the Hong Kong Art Fair in May 2010 and later for Chatterjee & Lal, Delhi at the end of 2010.

The meeting of East and West does not multicultural make

Multicultural is too simplistic a word to describe the works of Nusra Latif Qureshi and Naeem Rana, says Shivangi Ambani-Gandhi.

“It is not as if using the word multiculturalism cures all the inter-cultural conflicts between people,” says Melbourne-based artist, Nusra Latif Qureshi. Her words ring true when you consider the timing of ‘this reminds me of someplace else’ —an exhibition of works by Qureshi and her husband, which showed at the Adelaide Festival Centre as part of the Oz Asia Festival 2009.

The exhibition described in the catalogue as representing the "harmony and the tolerance we have as a multicultural sociaty", came just months after the media exploded with news of racial attacks on Indian students.

“Multiculturalism” has become a problematic word to use—too simplistic perhaps—when describing the works of artists such as Pakistani-Australian Qureshi and her husband Naeem Rana.

Qureshi trained in the rigorous art of miniature painting, while Rana comes from a family of calligraphers and started training with his father at the age of 12. Both combine their traditional artistic styles with western practices and elements to create a narrative.

However, being Pakistani immigrants to Australia is but one aspect of their personality and their work. “Sometimes its a bit challenging to be marketed as a ‘multicultural’ artist, as the work is seen by many to have an exotic feel, and some hidden meaning where there is none,” says Qureshi.

When asked to describe her practice in another exhibition catalogue, she wrote, “My presence as a woman, as an Asian, as a Muslim, as a migrant, as an ex-colonised, as a dark skinned individual and as a painter determine the course of images I make.”

The historical symbolism of the feminine figure has been a central theme in her work for some time. In the Red Silks series, which was part of the recent exhibition, Qureshi superimposes a self portrait—from a passport photo—with a Victorian era dress, Urdu text, flowers and birds.

She decodes the symbolism thus: “The text is comprised of Urdu alphabets and some words like qalam, dawat, roshnai (pen, inkwell, ink). The word/text is there as an imposed element, and shows my weariness of word—spoken and written—and its inadequacy at expressing human emotion. Bird for me represents a different state of mind that is not necessarily expressed in words or in phrases.”

In another series of works, also displayed in Adelaide, she approaches the one emotion most often represented in mass media—love. “In these prints I have tried to explore and comment upon the idea of love and how it is understood or misunderstood as an emotion,” she says.

She uses the most popular of these media—film, and more specifically Bollywood. “I worked with three old Indian classics, Umrao Jaan, Abhimaan and Kabhi Kabhi,” says Qureshi. “In all these movies, its not a straight forward ‘love-story’ as is represented in so many Bollywood and Hollywood movies. I choose the scenes that I found visually potent and extremely charged with some emotional state of the characters and put a ‘dialogue’ on it in the form of text, like ‘My love is eternal’, or ‘Love me forever and ever’.”

Meanwhile, with his brazen use of colour and seductive female silhouettes, Naeem Rana’s works allude to another aspect of Bollywood—film posters. “Film posters are one popular form that represents the local way of design and perceiving aesthetics in South Asia,” he says.

In Azadi Bachao, a female silhouette is superimposed with a fighter jet, the Universal Studios logo and the Apple logo, and the text Azadi Bachao (save the freedom) in Urdu calligraphy. Looking at the work, one is left pondering about the freedoms lost—especially for a woman—in a world of war and consumerism. “The presence, importance and the contribution of women in making a culture and representing it and carrying it—that is what I appreciate and celebrate in my works,” says Rana.

Seeing their works together in a single exhibition, it is quite easy to see the commnality in the themes that Qureshi and Rana pursue. Their use of the tools of appropriation and pastiche make the works interrelated and reciprocal—almost as if the couple is sharing their conversation with the viewer.

Though they have only collaborated on a work just once, it is quite visible that they borrow each others’ vocabulary. Qureshi reveals that the Urdu text in the Red Silks series is taken from an exercise sheet that Rana has been doing.

The couple came to Australia in 2001 to pursue post graduate studies. I ask them about the difference in the approach to arts education in the two countries. “VCA (Victorian College of Arts) was much more of a dated, colonial experience with little awareness of the world and art practices,” Qureshi says. The so called traditional training (from the National College of Art in Lahore) is quite contemporary, where we studied history of western art as well as eastern art.”

Even the attitude to artists is surprisingly the opposite of what I expected to be in the two countries. Qureshi says, “In Pakistan, people do not consider artists to be the ‘odd one out’ like in Australia and there is rarely a question like “But what do you really do?” as we have been asked by a lot of people here.”