Untitled

Celebrated for her three-dimensional sculptures in cork and bronze, Huma Bhabha has also produced a substantial body of works on paper. Following the invitation of the gallerist Peter Blum in 2007 to produce a portfolio of prints, Bhabha has continued to work beyond the domains of sculpture, including drawings and overpainting on photographs.

During a trip to Pakistan, Bhabha took a number of photographs of construction sites and barren landscapes, which would become the basis of many of her drawings. The photographs would be enlarged in black and white, and Bhabha would draw on them in ink.

Untitled (2010) hails from this earlier group of works on paper, in which she has drawn over a black-and-white photograph of a deserted landscape in the middle of which is a pile of rubble. Bhabha has marked out this rubble in black ink, and the form that becomes discernible is a sphinx. The entire scene is haloed by an orange and yellow wash on the upper portions of the photograph that bestows a somber and slightly apocalyptic mood. Her ink line is confident and bold. By overdrawing on the photograph, Bhabha transforms what was once merely a straightforward, documentary image into an imaginary landscape with a sculptural form dating from the ancient past emerging from rubble.

Bhabha’s mark making that discerns a form from this rubble seems to posit the question, are these the remains of a bombed archeological site or the ruins of some other act of devastation? It brings to memory forsaken landscapes of war torn zones that once were sites of cultural and social life. Bhabha has always referenced historic figurative sculpture in her work, and it is not a surprise that the form that she sees in this desolate landscape a monumental sphinx, which also emphasizes another enduring concern of the practice: the continuity and connections between the earth and the human body.

Having received a BFA painting and printmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design, it is not surprising that Bhabha maintains a practice of drawing and making works on paper. Her hybrid works on paper compliment and mirror her sculptural practice in that the figure, whether human or part-human, remain mostly the focus, but they are also composites. Her sculptures combine numerous materials ranging from Styrofoam to air dried clay, cork and chicken wire, to name a few.