For Ayesha Sultana, fragility and resilience are two sides of a coin

‘Fragility and Resilience’, presented by Ishara Art Foundation, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai, marks Ayesha Sultana’s first comprehensive solo exhibition in the GCC (Sept. 6 — December 7). Sultana was born in 1984 in Jashore, Bangladesh, and lives and works between Dhaka, Bangladesh and Atlanta, USA. Her practice spans drawing, painting and sculpture, investigating the material and conceptual possibilities of form and medium. The Ishara exhibition is an exploration of the delicate balance between the vulnerability and strength of our planet in the 21st century. It is the artist’s argument that fragility can be a form of strength, though containing deep vulnerabilities. Sultana thus challenges the often conventional binaries that rigidly separate the concepts of the fragile and the resilient.

Ayesha Sultana works between Bangladesh and USA.

The thematic exploration is especially relevant to the contemporary world as social, ecological and personal upheavals continually test its limits of sustainability. Featuring a diverse array of artworks that includes the first-ever unveiling of the artist’s hand-blown glass sculptures, the exhibition presents newly made oil paintings, watercolour on Japanese silk tissue, works on clay-coated paper, and her past photographic interrogations. It also offers a glimpse into Sultana’s creative process, through the inclusion of her sketchbooks, diaries, in-progress artworks and an unfinished video.

‘Fragility and Resilience’ is designed to offer viewers a journey of discovery and reflection. The presentation is divided into three sections, each melding into the other. Visitors can engage with the qualities and thematic nuances of each body of work, even as they experience the show as a cohesive whole. Upon entering Ishara, visitors encounter Sultana’s hand-blown glass sculptures on a raised platform. Symbolising the duality of the exhibition’s title, each work in the series has a connection with the human body, since it required a glassblower’s breath to give them their final forms.

Composition titled Inhabiting Our Bodies.

The process of creating the sculptures indicates the tension between brittleness and strength, as glass in its molten state is malleable, only to harden upon cooling. In their organic forms, the sculptures resemble droplets of water, transparent organs, or bubbles of air that may burst upon a slight touch. Surrounding her sculptures are works from the ‘Breath Count’ series, commenced 2018. Marks of varying shapes, sizes and depths are scratched onto clay-coated paper, keeping time with the artist’s breaths during different moments in her life.

The intimate diary of her personal experiences, recorded through the unconscious act of inhaling and exhaling, is like a musical score, capturing the experience shared by humanity with the onset of the pandemic, where every breath was both crucial for sustaining life and was also a threat to others, since it could be a vector of infection. Clay – the medium used - is a material associated with the earth, and paper with trees, evoking an absorbing interplay between these elements.

Miasms by Ayesha Sultana.

Interwoven with ‘Breath Count’ are works from Sultana’s ‘Threshold’ series, created to commemorate her father’s passing in 2008. The series consists of photographs taken by him in the 1980s and 1990s during his assignments as an officer of the Bangladesh Air Force in South Asia, the GCC and the US, along with photographs that Sultana took during her own travels in later years. Holding onto the memory of the image in the face of erasure becomes a central theme in the works, where serene views of cities and landscapes are solarised and scratched. Scratches disrupt the viewer’s perception of the image, representing the imprint of time on landscapes, bodies, architecture and memory itself.

Tissue in Sultana’s ‘Miasms’ and ‘Inhabiting Our Bodies’ series is an affecting choice of medium, epitomising frailness, ephemerality and fluidity. Tissue paper, with its delicate and translucent nature, is easily torn, damaged, dissolved and dispersed. But Sultana transforms this flimsy medium into a vehicle for artistic expression, evoking both skin and the turbulence of the sea. In the tradition of feminist art practices, the abstract works are reminders of stains, pools of fluid, blood clots and microscopic nuclei — all life-affirming. The resulting works possess an understated strength, speaking to an aesthetics of the body and the ecosystem that prevails, despite hindrances.

Work from the Threshold series.

Another feature of the exhibition is the inclusion of Sultana’s sketchbooks, diaries, in-progress artworks and an unfinished video. Arranged on tables across Ishara’s mezzanine, the documents and artefacts offer a private and intimate glimpse into her artistic process. They reveal the meticulous planning, experimentation and emotional investment involving each finished piece, highlighting the fragility and resilience inherent in all creative acts. The material serves as a testament to the artist’s willingness to face the unknown and the incomplete. It reflects the fluidity and openness that characterise her approach to art, allowing viewers to witness the yet-to-be, unpolished stages of her creative journey.

To enhance visitor experience and deepen the engagement with the exhibition’s themes, Ishara Art Foundation also hosts a series of public programmes that include artist talks, guided tours and interactive workshops. Artworks have been loaned from the collection of the Samdani Art Foundation, the collection of Prateek and Priyanka Raja, the collection of Akshay Chudasama and the Ishara Art Foundation and the Prabhakar Collection. The exhibition is supported by Barclays Private Bank and Carl F. Bucherer, with logistics assisted by Experimenter. Sultana’s works have been widely collected by institutions that include SFMoMA, San Francisco; Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi; Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi; X Museum, Beijing; and Samdani Art Foundation, Dhaka.