Adeela Suleman

Description

The first major monograph on this acclaimed Pakistani visual artist, based in Karachi.

Born in 1970 in Karachi, Pakistan, where she lives and works, after completing her masters in international relations at the University of Karachi, Adeela Suleman studied sculpture at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture. She is the director and founding member of Vasl Artists’ Association in Karachi,in addition to being Associate Professor she was the Head of the Department of Fine Art (2008-2019) at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi.

The mainstay of Suleman’s artistry explores a series of dichotomies about the fragile and fleeting ephemerality of life. By juxtaposing intricate, often deliberatively striking imagery – initially pastoralized scenes rendered in the filigree tradition of Islamic art – against the harder, formidable qualities of stainless-steel, Suleman’s work reclaims the beauty, pathos, and precarious nature of the human condition inherent in the flux of contemporary societies. Her recurring motifs – such as birds and flowers – form detailed and repetitive designs replete with symbolic meaning. Abstracted notions of loss, disappearance and death quietly resonate through her sculptures. In lieu of tombs, memorials and funerals, these works confront our earthly fears but remain suggestive of transcendental relief. They may be seen as symbolic representations of the love of nature and the chaos of humankind, in addition to fragmented documentaries that reference violent and catastrophic occurrences in the artist’s sociopolitical landscape.

Suleman has participated in solo and group exhibitions worldwide, including Phantoms of Asia at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; An Atlas of Mirrors, Singapore Biennale, Singapore; Everyday life, Asian Art Biennial at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art; Hanging Fire-Contemporary Art from Pakistan at the Asia Society Museum, New York; Fearless-Contemporary South Asian Art, Art Gallery NSW, Sydney, Australia; Kunsthalle Fridericianum Kassel, Germany; Sullivan+Strumpf Gallery , Singapore; Aicon Gallery in New York; Imagined Workshop, 2nd Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, Japan; and Steel Life at the Triennale di Milano, Milan, Italy.