Huma Bhabha: Various works (2008–2011)

Overview

Huma Bhabha’s post-apocalyptic and poetic sculptures are assembled using a myriad of unconventional materials. The pieces thread figuration and abstraction together, making cultural references from cinematography to architecture, exploring conflict, displacement and longing. In conjunction with her sculptural work, Bhabha also produces textured drawings and photographs that blend expressive uncanny figurations with modern abstract forms.

Represented in Unsettled Objects are two of the artist’s iconic sculptural pieces. Bumps in the Road (2008) is an uncanny assemblage made of various materials, which form a discombobulated face. The disfigured head with rusted car parts for eyes and a mouth stuffed with wood, is covered in clay and affixed to a stool. Next to it stand two parallel wooden beams that seem to be trying to take a step forward but are stuck in space and time, resting on a burned black platform. In Jhukarjodaro (2011), the artist depicts a giant foot covered with clay. The foot is detached from the body as it sits atop a wooden pedestal to which a torn photograph of a landscape is affixed; possibly to portray it as a symbol of movement. The foot is firmly planted onto the pedestal with the landscape, implying a ground line and a potential memory of place.