Sheherbano Husain
Artist statement
“The more we become conscious of what is unconscious in us, the less we are subject to the effects of what lies in the shadows of consciousness.”
Carl Jung
My art practice has largely revolved around the self - the personal impacts the collective, making it imperative to know ourselves and look within. However, this is a tall order in today’s highly polarised world; we are continuously bombarded with external stimuli that tends to hypnotise and numb us. Our growing obsession with social media, online entertainment and news and gadgets, alienates us from our true nature and each other.
My intention is to create works that reinforce the idea of a single humanity and have a universal appeal. I favour a narrative style, using both personal and archetypal symbols to depict psychological and emotional states. Borrowing imagery from numerous sources to create a readable language, and drawing on both collective and personal memory, my influences range from the various mystical traditions and mythology, to art history chaos theory.
Whilst not completely averse to technology (the xerox machine has played a key role in my ‘hand made’ prints), I mostly prefer working and creating by hand. For me, the visceral act is paramount for harnessing my creative power - it is also a conscious and deliberate choice, in the hope of making a shift from an ever growing mechanistic mindset.
It is my hope that my paintings will spark the viewer’s imagination, offering a fresh perspective with quirky, relatable, narratives and providing a meditative and introspective inner sanctum from the noise of a highly volatile world.
