Written by: Nimra Khan
Posted on: July 05, 2018 | 
| 中文
The German philosopher Karl Marx profoundly noted, “Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people.”(Marx, Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, 1843) .While critical of the authenticity of religious belief, Marx does not blame religion for society’s ills; neither does he discredit its relevance within it. He instead deems it a reflection of an oppressive society, providing solace to the dejected, and hope for them to persevere in the face of hardship.
Why then, does religion sometimes become a mechanism of oppression, rather than the, “sigh of the oppressed” that is meant to provide escape from or endurance of it? For Seyhr Qayum, the answer, again, lies in an oppressive society that uses religion as a totalitarian front that cannot be questioned to justify its evils, fixing cultural values in a religious framework to lay credence to them, and in the process distorting both to manipulate the masses.
The artist presents her latest body of work ‘We Are All Mad Here’, at Canvas Gallery, with a diverse imagery unified within a coherent language of dark, rich tones, touching upon myriad themes anchored through the female experience of South Asian society. Through these works, she attempts to explore the intricacies of female identity and the intersecting roles religion and culture play in shaping it, while also negotiating the liberal and conservative spheres of her life, to locate herself within a dichotomous existence.
A series of works incorporating a circus theme allows the artist to explore the roles women are expected to fulfill for the benefit and pleasure of others. It is reminiscent of young girls paraded in front of potential future in-laws, treated as objects of beauty put on display and expected to bend over backwards for the appeasement of others. The impossibly twisted and contorted female forms and their dull, lifeless faces create a picture of unease and constriction, while the carnivalesque surroundings paint a picture of chaos and surrealism. The aesthetics of the nude form not only disarms the bleak narrative but also strips away any signifiers of personal identity or agency, or a sense of self.
However, in pieces like Now that’s a Weight Off(/On) my Shoulders!, the artist references religion more directly in shaping the female experience. The minarets upon the heads of the women represent the burdens placed upon them by society in the name of religion. Women are deemed responsible for upholding religion’s honor and protecting its structure, their actions and choices directly tied with its respect in the world, and this very mechanism of oppression is then deemed a privilege. This status then dictates the entire female identity as perceived by the ‘caretakers’ of religion.
Qayum also reinterprets and appropriates paintings from art history, especially the Renaissance, in certain works, to point out the blatant sexism with which religion is interpreted in historical canon. In Hey Give me a Pen; I’m Going to Re-write This Narrative she takes Titian's painting Assumptions of the Virgin, and replaces the predominantly European male characters with South Asian female counterparts, rewriting the narrative from not only another gender, but also another cultural context. She’s So Heavy follows a more personal narrative, using the reclining female form of countless Renaissance paintings placed upon a zebra crossing, to talk about a metaphorical crossroads and the overwhelming desire to escape into inaction. The figure most closely resembles that in Manet’s Olympia, reversed in form and given an alternate ethnic identity; perhaps this reinterpretation of West through East is meant to reconcile the dualities the artist wishes to resolve?
There is a heavy focus on portraiture and the figure in each work, yet these protagonists are not based on any specific people, but are representative of an entire region and its culture. This, in a way, extends the narrative beyond personal experiences to the wider South Asian society, providing the work with a universal relevance.
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