Written by: Khadijah Rehman
Posted on: October 09, 2019 | 
| 中文
Watch the Dark Play
“Dust in the air suspended
Marks the place where a story ended.
Dust inbreathed was a house-
The walls, the wainscot and the mouse,
The death of hope and despair,
This is the death of air.”
T. S. Eliot (Four Quartets)
When early man was born, the sky was the roof, and the vastness of endless land was home. Then, the cave dwellers discovered caves, and these secure structures became means of shelter from the wildness of raging weather and untamed animals. It is human nature to try and turn house into home, and soon, drawings were scrawled onto walls, fruit was gathered and arranged within these spaces, and ceremonies and rituals were held, giving birth to a semblance of permanence. Permanence, security and comfort, after all, are the promises of a home.
In written word and image, too, the home has been used as a recurring motif. The weary traveler, the prodigal son, all return back to this great root, as if tethered to it forever. Miniature Artist Eesha Suhail, in her show Perversions of Home, at the O Art Space, explores the idea of home, in a devastatingly beautiful body of work.
Tea, Contemplation
Suhail’s paintings are a surprising punch to the throat. Impeccably rendered in classic miniature techniques and hyper realism, the work is hypnotic, not only for the beauty of its formal aspects, but more because of its garish, ghastly undertone of suffocation. Dramatic, almost theatrical light is the artist’s ally; whether falling upon an ornamental, patterned rug, or lighting up a sofa like a blue ghost, the light nudges the viewer into quiet discomfort. Adding to this feeling of unease are gaudy, repetitive motifs on the walls, red gleaming tiles that bring to mind the crimson of blood, and doors that are only slightly ajar. Relief or ease have no place in Suhail’s home, this is the place of tiptoes and whispers. In Fire and Ice, a wooden rocking chair rests on gleaming marble flooring, white drapery dangling from its back and pooling onto the floor. The light in the room is cold and blue, causing the cloth to gleam, breathing eerie life into the fabric. Stairs in the background, also dimly lit in blue light, are unwelcoming and uninviting. The polished wood of the rocking chair and the intensely polished blood-red floor create a scene that is stifled in silence.
Fire and Ice
If ever there was a silent painting, this is it. Suhail has taken the rocking chair, which can be a cherished family heirloom or keepsake, and haunted it with her understanding of home, not as safe space but as confining in nature.
In Disquiet too, she has created a painting that is both soundless and motionless, all life has seeped from it, and only a nagging sense of impending threat remains. The room has become a still life of sorts, a yellow lamp and vases arranged on a wooden table in front of a mirror, the mirror lifelessly reflecting the arrangement back to the viewer. No human life is present in the room or in its reflection, the wall is crimson, the wallpaper disturbingly lurid to the eye. A stark cemented wall peeks into the composition, and the foreboding quality of the room is akin to that of a crime scene.
Disquiet
This is what home means to the artist, where every artifact and piece of furniture has been curated in detail, and yet a quiet despair has assimilated into everything, almost permeating into the viewer. It is a sickening feeling, being trapped in a world of one’s own making, and it is this smothering, consuming emotion that the works are evocative of.
For an artist who paints as skillfully as Suhail does, in a world where art is a form of solace, it is an accomplishment to have the viewer leave a show burdened, instead of relieved. By distorting pre-existing notions of home, the works have become reminiscent of dark places that exist not only tangibly in the outside world, but live and grow within us, as sly, secretive parts that we dare not reveal to another soul.
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