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COLOR | GARDEN is Hamra Abbas’ fourth solo exhibition at the gallery, presenting a set of conceptual prints alongside new marble inlay works that extend her investigation of color theory, geometry and the garden motif in architecture. The exhibition coincides with her Expo 2020 Dubai public art commission Garden (2021) - a magnificent utopian garden created on a grand scale, combining vibrant colored stones into images of waterfalls, trees, flowers, skies and mountains. COLOR | GARDEN she revisits some of these motifs but on a more intimate scale.
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In these monochromatic colored abstractions, I extract primary and secondary color swatches from the monolithic black or vice versa to symbolize multiplicity and diversity, the many ways people can engage with matters of faith, ritual, and devotion.
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I started making marble inlay works with elements borrowed from historic architectural sites in Lahore, mainly featuring fragments of a garden, i.e., flower, tree, fruit, waterfall, color. I interpreted this imagery under the gardens of paradise framework. It gave a context to read the ornamentation at these sites, especially places of religious and devotional practice like mosques or shrines and imperial enclosures such as tombs, forts, or palaces. I tried to address the notion of desire and devotion through these images to understand what they seek to communicate, which is supposed to be beyond description. It led me to think about the relationship between ideology and aesthetics.
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Mountains are important in various religious traditions worldwide, often seen as sacred spaces, a connection between earth and heaven, places of revelation, and a symbol of fertility. We can see the image of K2 (the world’s second-highest mountain) as synonymous with the visual identity of Pakistan; hence I made multiple drawings of K2 and incorporated it into Garden. Mountain 1 (2022) is based on one of these drawings.
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Unlike the other works in the exhibition, I decided to create the image entirely from various shades of lapis lazuli. Working on this piece was an enormous challenge as it was dificult to see the image because of the minimal tonal variations of lapis. Only when the piece was polished, after many months of work, I was finally able to see the finished product.
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Hamra Abbas COLOR | GARDEN
Past viewing_room