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Nashville, Tennessee
Contemporary Art Gallery


 
237 Rep. John Lewis Way N. 37219
Tuesday–Saturday 10:00 a.m. — 5:00 p.m.
615.255.7816


REPRESENTED ARTISTS


EXHIBITED ARTISTS



RECENT & UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS
Mark

ARTISTS        EXHIBITIONS        CONSULTATION       INFORMATION













January 6, 2024 - February 17, 2024





Madiha Siraj engages with the constraints of non-representation traditionally adhered to by Islamic artists, creating intricately-patterned circular works which gesture towards the divine. Using polymer clay, Siraj constructs thousands of small floral forms, adhering them to circular panels in geometric patterns and shimmering gradients.

Siraj’s work is a conscious evasion of the “cult of the artist,” which enshrined every gesture of the mid-century abstract giants in the art-historical canon. Instead, Siraj employs a geometric process which forgoes ego.

The artist engages with a lineage of Muslim artists who employed mathematical, geometric compositions that would allow other artists to replicate their patterns, or to carry on work after the death of an individual artist.

The notion of infinity is implied across several aspects of Siraj’s work: in the potentiality of an ever-expanding pattern, in the gestalt whole formed by innumerable tiny clay pieces, in her use of circles—a line with no end point as well as an earthly reflection of a divine ideal.


︎︎︎Exhibition List