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Adeela Suleman
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Born in 1970, Adeela Suleman did her BFA in Sculpture from Indus Valley
School of Art and Architecture, Karachi, Pakistan (1999) and MA in International Relations from the University of Karachi (1995). She lives and works in Karachi, Pakistan.
Her oeuvre deals primarily with transforming mundane, found objects and materials from our daily lives into sculptural forms with multiple references. Her earlier works spoke to the...
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Born in 1970, Adeela Suleman did her BFA in Sculpture from Indus Valley
School of Art and Architecture, Karachi, Pakistan (1999) and MA in International Relations from the University of Karachi (1995). She lives and works in Karachi, Pakistan.
Her oeuvre deals primarily with transforming mundane, found objects and materials from our daily lives into sculptural forms with multiple references. Her earlier works spoke to the private, domestic spheres of women and their constricted existence. Her sculptures; body armors, helmets and corsets were made from kitchen utensils and functional tools painted decoratively. Always aesthetically pleasing, their beauty underlined the artist’s quiet commentary on the place of women in society.
Subsequently, her work has been concerned with the political turmoil in Pakistani society. Flatter in volume, she creates tableaux on steel sheets, using pastoral images and symbols of destruction like images of weapon. Like in her earlier works, these juxtapositions of contradictory imagery create narratives of the extant violence in society and the indifference of society to it.
Trained as a sculptor, Adeela Suleman works with crafts people in Pakistan in creating these three-dimensional bodies of work, thus making the art more inclusive and rooted in the culture that it originates from.
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Born
1970
Karachi, Pakistan
Education
1999 MA in International Relations, University of Karachi, Karachi
1999 Bachelor of Fine Arts (Sculpture), Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi
Exhibitions
Select Solo Exhibitions
2014 'Towards the End', Aicon Gallery,...
Select Solo Exhibitions
2014 'Towards the End', Aicon Gallery, New York
2011 'Recent Works', Aicon Gallery, London in conjunction with site-specific sculpture, Drained 2011, for the Manchester Cathedral as part of Asia Triennial Manchester 11
2010 ‘After All It’s Always Somebody Else…’, Aicon Gallery, New York
2008 ‘Uncertainty’, Rohtas 2, Lahore; Canvas Gallery, Karachi
2007 ‘Confinement’, Commune Artist Colony, Karachi
Select Group Exhibitions
2011-12 'Reprise 2011', Aicon Gallery, New York
2011 'Reprise', Aicon Gallery, New York
2009 'The Emperor’s New Clothes: Dress, Politics and Identity in Contemporary Pakistani Art', Talwar Gallery, New York
2009 ‘Signs taken for Wonders: Recent Art from India and Pakistan’, Aicon Gallery, London
2009 'Contemporary Art Exhibit’, Aicon Gallery, New York
2008 ‘Farida Batool, Adeela Suleman and Tazeen Qayyum’, Aicon Gallery, New York
2008 ‘Tradition, Technique, Technology –II’, Contemporary Artists from Pakistan, Aicon Gallery, Palo Alto
2008 ‘Women of Light’, Galerie Davide Gallo, Berlin
2007 ‘An Intensity of Space & Substance’, National Art Gallery, Islamabad
2007 ‘Love’, National Art Gallery, Islamabad
2007 ‘Articulating The Subtext’, Alliance Francaise, Karachi
2006 ‘Flights of Fancy’, Royaat Gallery, Lahore
2006 ‘Body’, Amin Gulgee Gallery, Karachi
2006 ‘Calligraphy’, Amin Gulgee Gallery, Karachi
2005 ‘Beyond Borders’, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai
2004 ‘Spielen mit geladenem Gewehr (Playing with the loaded gun)’, Kunsthalle Fridericianum Kassel, Germany
2003 Twenty-four Shots per second, Kara Film Fest, Karachi
2003 ‘Playing with the Loaded Gun’, Apex Art, New York
2003 Canvas Gallery, Karachi
2001 ‘The Thakhti Show’, Freer Hall, Karachi
Joint Exhibitions
2009 ‘Failing States', with Tazeen Qayyum at Aicon Gallery, London
Participations
2012 'Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past', Asian Art Museum, San Francisco
2011 'Homespun', Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi
2009 ‘Hanging Fire: Contemporary Art From Pakistan’, Asia Society, New York
2009 ‘Steel Life’, La Triennale, Milano
2008 Video Loop 08’Barcelona, Spain
2008 Fiera Internazionale d'Arte contemparanea, International Exhibition of Contemporary Art, Bologna, Italy
2007 ‘Preview Berlin’, The Emerging Art Fair, Berlin
2005 ‘Urban/Culture’, CP Open Biennale, Jakarta
2003 43rd Premio Suzzara, Associazione Galleria Del Premio Suzzara, Italy
2002 Imagined Workshop, 2nd Fukuoka Asian Art Triennial, Fukuoka
2000 Art Festival: Urban Voices, Karachi
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Your oeuvre has always had an underlying stream of social and political consciousness in it. Is that a deliberate choice on your part?
I did my Masters in International Relations at the University of Karachi before my BFA and my experience at the university has been an influence in my work. The university was very politically charged and there was a great awareness and involvement amongst the student...
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Your oeuvre has always had an underlying stream of social and political consciousness in it. Is that a deliberate choice on your part?
I did my Masters in International Relations at the University of Karachi before my BFA and my experience at the university has been an influence in my work. The university was very politically charged and there was a great awareness and involvement amongst the student body. Even at that point, my college projects commented on such issues.
So, do you see yourself as an activist as much as an artist?
I am not an activist. I am observing and acknowledging because one is aware of the surroundings, we don’t live in a bubble. I am not making a judgment on what should happen or not.
There does appear to be a shift in the language you are using - from the steel utensils’ sculptures in the past few years to the works in your recent exhibition at Aicon Gallery in 2010, which have less volume. Could you talk about that?
It has been a natural evolution for me. My college projects used to be about found objects, where I once made a tea fountain in a shrine. I then worked with motorcycles. The presence of utensils in my work came from using gadgets that made the life of women easier. So, I was making these objects my own. Now, I am using the skin of these objects to make the artwork. There is a loss of humor compared to earlier works because I am talking more of death in this suite of works.
Is that also from a growing concern with the political situation in Pakistan and elsewhere in the world, the growing hostilities?
Yes, you think about how we carry on with our daily activities when there is so much destruction around because it does not directly affect us. But there is always a tension between life and death, between what to do and not to do. The only thing certain seems to be death.
Could you talk about the process in your recent suite of works After All its Always Somebody Else…?
I wanted to use steel sheets like that used in mortuaries. Abdul Sattar Edhi, a great philanthropist started an ambulance network, where he would pick up unclaimed dead bodies, give them a bath and give them a dignified burial. This was on my mind when I started this suite of work. I do small drawings, put them on a computer and look for images I want to use, which are like found objects for me. Once I assemble the complete image, it is transferred to a larger scale and steel sheets are hammered to create them in three dimensions. I work with the craft people, because I am essentially a sculptor and see objects in three dimensions.
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