Lubna Agha

An esssay by Kristine Clairmont

Lubna Agha, one of Pakistan's preeminent artists, is noted for her eclectic, innovative, and substantial body of work. Formally identified as a seminal and pivotal figure in the burgeoning Pakistani female art movement, Agha has proven herself to be a continuously evolving and stylistically fluid artist throughout her esteemed thirty-year career.

Twenty years ago, Agha left her native Pakistan and resettled in the United States. Throughout her residency in the United States, Agha has continued to assimilate and reflect the ideals, challenges and idiosyncrasies of her adopted land. The evolving panorama of the American Experience is explored in her latest works-in-progress series entitled, InfoSeries. Agha feels that remaining cued to the pulse of American life and its influences provides a dynamic source of inspiration and direction in her work that enriches her artistic development.

Never straying too far from her native Persian roots, such as traditional miniature painting and Sufi mysticism, Agha has also been equally influenced by Western artistic movements originating from the Colonial Era and beyond. Agha feels that her work bridges the psyche of the East with that of the West-resulting in a melding of the literary influences and highly stylized miniature painting of the East, with the individualistic and emotive artistic concerns of the West.

Agha describes her work as a type of "lyrical expressionism," and favors a lush, sensuous, and bold use of color. Her transition to acrylics has allowed her a greater amount of freedom and flexibility to use color as a thematic element that enlivens and enriches her canvases. Her use of vibrant color heightens the sense of robustness and fertile possibilities inherent in her works.

Agha's thematic concerns often revolve around concepts of individual identity and personal boundaries. These boundaries are either self-imposed or culturally imposed, and can be emotional, intellectual, sexual, metaphysical or personal in origin. Oftentimes these boundaries and identities constrict and burden the individual, inhibiting their spiritual development and growth. These boundaries can even cloud and distort our perceptions of truth. At times, imposed boundaries isolate and remove us-from others, from ourselves, from truth, from that which provides nourishment. Agha's artistic thesis is that the struggle with and examination of these boundaries and constraints allows us a pathway into spiritual and personal transcendence. This transcendence allows us to reassert our connections with others and with ourselves, thereby restoring us to the sense of whole we crave for spiritual fulfillment. This journey of revelation and discovery leads us to an understanding of a higher, universal truth.

For Agha, the path of spiritual revelation is depicted in and defined by the realities and physicality of the material world. Often depicted in her canvases are solitary figures, or generic groups, flowing together, abutting one other in an attempt to find symmetry and connection within their material surroundings. The surroundings depicted in her works are often recognizable although they are in their minimalist form. This lack of definition in her canvases highlights a sense of anxiety--a reflection of the emotional state of the solitary figures in her works.

Agha offers an alternative to her barren surroundings of deconstruction, uncertainty, and eradication. She responds with a realized vision of fulfillment, which is grounded in the commonalties of cyclical events. These cyclical events can be derived from nature or from human experience. Oftentimes their depiction is a representative microcosm of the whole that binds us together. The cycles of birth, life, death and disintegration are an inescapable reality for each human being. By identifying with and examining our commonalties, we can transcend imposed boundaries.

In no work is this better illustrated than in Roots. The elements depicted all sustain life-from the umbilical cord in the womb, to the roots of a tree. The intertwining of the two represent how we, as human beings, are tied into a greater reality and cycle of rebirth and life. It becomes impossible to separate one from the other.

The Harem Within 1 provides a highly stratified view of an individual attempting to connect with an exterior whole. In this canvas, the figure is removed entirely from the cyclical events of the natural world by a physical constraint-a box. While visions of the natural world and the whole it sustains swirls around the figure in the forms of twigs, leaves, and fauna, the figure is prevented from joining and communing with this whole.

In other works, such as Portrait of a Woman, and Lovers 2, the figures are not as physically removed from exterior surroundings, but appears consumed with the search for connection to the larger whole. These canvases depict the inner tableau and psyche of the figure through the use of color and symbology. Again, Agha reinforces her ideas of cyclical events binding us to a larger sense of whole by adding touches of foliage and faint outlines of the natural world to her canvases. These figures have assimilated aspects of a greater whole, but remain somewhat apart and removed.

Agha again is examining the boundaries and constraints placed on individuals. We have yet to see what Agha's response will be to the newest constraints and challenges. With the completion of this series, we should have a resolute and inspiring message from this vital and invigorating artist.