hold - Aishath Huda's solo exhibition @ Gallery350 (1st - 20th Dec)

If you are reading this between 4pm - 10pm (except Sunday), stop reading and go to Gallery350. Hurry. 

GALLERY350 IS BACK? FOR HOW LONG?

Gallery350 does not disappoint with their exhibitions. From the exhibitions they’ve had so far, Gallery350 has shown us (me) where the bar for contemporary fine art in Maldives should be. With that being said, the long breaks and somewhat unreliable timings, make it believable that this is in fact an artist-run space. Something that they humbly yet valiantly proclaim at the entrance of the gallery. 

Gallery350, unlike other galleries in Male’, is hard to find. It's annoying. But I used google maps. 

Maybe this is what they mean when they say fine art is not accessible. 

WHAT’S WITH THE BELL?

The gallery is on the first floor of a residential apartment. There is a little sign below the name of the apartment that says the gallery is on the first floor, with instructions to... ring a bell? 

Lil' weird... isn’t it insane to have a doorbell ring when you are in a gallery? 

I debated on it but rang it anyway. They wouldn't have asked you to, if you weren't supposed to ring it right?

As I walked up the stairs and opened the door, a black and white human-ish face, painted in ink, stared at me from the grey wall it was hung on. 

Three gentle 'hello's and three warm smiles followed from three actual humans sitting on a bench to the furthest left of the gallery space. I was offered coffee and I said yes. 

AT FIRST GLANCE

There were no descriptions next to the art, no titles, no prices either - nothing. Just the art, an exhibition text on the middle wall and a material list on the furthest right wall. 

There was a little leaflet thing with Huda's bio (quite impressive!), titles and sizes of the artworks - still no prices. I did see a couple of red dots though, so whatever the prices are, some people agree. Surprisingly, there were dots on two installation pieces too! 

I did a number of loops before looking at the titles and starting to follow them in the order on the leaflet. Although I am fairly certain that there was no order to begin with. I was a little shocked by the fact that the exhibition could be enjoyed without the titles. 

TEXTS

The exhibition text read like a poem, and the materials list read like baking instructions. 

The 'poem' gave me the context I needed. I suggest starting your journey there. The last line gave context to the title of the exhibition too. 

"..water folds and holds"

The 'baking instructions' provided "(i) Materials" that were used and "(ii) Events" that took place to create the art showcased. 

Great amount of context. 

IN MY EYES 

The Francis-Bacon-esque face that greeted me was the most deformed or most melted away of all the portraits. It felt like a little inside joke she played on the viewer since it's what you walk into, and it's really the only form that seems familiar, but familiarity does not seem to make up much of the exhibition. 

There is another “Facescape'' that feels like a void, a window to the soul, a foetus, or a mole. Below it hung the title piece, Eight Glasses A Day (#2), that almost looked like the ribcage of the person’s face I was looking at above. 

Another “Facescape” was displayed, quite compositionally next to two pieces from the “Eight Glasses A Day” series - the series of folded, unfolded activated charcoal ‘paintings’.

“Eight Glasses A Day” felt to me a poignant commentary of human’s commodification of water and of human created borders. Visually, some pieces from this series read like oil that was traced. The layers created from the charcoal looked like they were sitting on the bottom of the page and air pockets sat on top. The mirroring yet unique patterns and textures around the border and created because of the borders made me reflect on things that we see and don't see happening on the borders we draw between ourselves - be it lakes, oceans, states, countries, family or friends. All of the “Eight Glasses A Day” series had eight folds. Even the big framed one (Eight Glasses A Day (#3)), you can see the eighth fold on the left side. Then again, maybe she was folding and unfolding it because it looked pretty and she is artsy. 

For me, the water events are great examples as to why Huda calls Water her collaborator. This word is very overused in 2023, and I kinda hate it. But it's true. She facilitated amongst other things; with ink, the collection of water and the human-time spent doing iterations, drying, choosing, framing and displaying what the water had to say. The water, in its own water-time, was sleeting, snowing, freezing, thawing and drying (etc) - as it usually does. The difference here was an artist trying her best to trace these processes. 

The longer I spent looking at these layers of ink and paper on Water Events (#10) and (#11), the more things I saw. Events from the list on the wall.  Little blasts of white. Fuzzy grey lighter layers of ink merging with darker layers that almost felt like some artistic rendition of topography. Dashes of ink that feel like action painting, except the action was done by the collaborator, Water.

The only artworks with colour were rust. Literally. Everything else was black (Chinese ink or activated charcoal). 

It was the first time I saw rust, in all its glorious colours, layers, patterns and textures on paper. Everything in the exhibition text, collaborating with water and putting the human-centric focus away, letting the water be as much of an artist as Huda, made complete sense to me. That and Guatama’s view on suffering and decay washed over me. Special shoutout to the ostentatious rust and ice piece, the gorgeous Wild, Wild, Water (Rust and Ice). Spend some time with it, look at the colours, look at the borders. 

Wild Wild Water (Ink and Water), is maybe the most meditative piece for me. It is visceral where the ink and ice was initially laid down, almost like spray paint or charcoal. But the flow, patterns, subtle colour changes on the edges, from black to grey to hues of brown to white that the water moved and created as the ice melted, was calming. The silence and the noise made me think of Araaka's drawings. Keep an eye out for the little blue details, that look like a mistake. It is. According to Huda, she did an overhaul of her studio before she started working on this piece, but somehow a lil’ blue dot from the atmosphere, a colour she used in her previous works landed and smudged on the paper. And she kept it. Because it showed what was in the atmosphere. Pretentiously artistic - I loved it. 

INSTALLATIONS! YES! 

It was the first time I have seen an actual installation piece in Maldives, and not some plaster of Paris ‘painting’. 

“The Sink and the Drain” was definitely the most instagrammable of the entire exhibition. A larger scale, vertical melting process of ice, a sort of timeline from solid to liquid to gas, captured on 36 sheets of Mulberry paper, displayed delicately in a floating illusion. It felt like a soft rhetorical question about time. It was an installation akin to Alicja Kwade’s early installations on time that I could contemplate for hours on. 

If the “Sink and the Drain" was a quiet contemplation on time, the little sculpture across it was loud. Small sheets of wax papers, of different hues of rust, stacked together and displayed on a metal tray that was rusted too. Initially, It looked like a bar chart almost. The sheets of wax paper looked like human seconds and the different hues looked like minutes, hours, days and/or years. It was the first piece that made me curious about the title and was reconfirmed that it was indeed some sort of measurement of time - water-time. The piece was titled “Might this be Water-Time?”. It was my favourite piece. It looked like flaky pastry. I wanted to peel a piece off and eat it. 

 

Across the main exhibition text, there are two panels, with a gap in-between just big enough to display an artwork. Initially I thought it was just to display that specific piece, but then I noticed “Water Events (#2)”, pinned to the left panel using nails and magnets. The space was just big enough for me to walk in side-ways. It forced the viewer to look at what the water had to say up close. It was a subtle way of forcing the viewers to interact and get personal with the piece. It was brilliant. 

I  cannot end without addressing the nails and magnets.  Eight Glasses of Water (#1), displayed in a corner is a great example of their functionality. Not only is it an innovative way (it’s novel to me) to display the art - like the Water Events (#2) in the hall, but it also makes a great argument for why half the exhibition is not necessarily paintings. The facescapes, the wild water and maybe the water events pieces are “paintings”. But the rust and activated charcoal pieces could be folded up like a napkin, pinned down by magnets, folded out and framed and it still said everything it had to say. 

Also, the magnets and the nails just looked so cool. I can’t wait to see people use magnets and not give Huda any credit. 

WHICH BOX?

Huda's work is difficult to pack and label. We clearly shouldn't, but how else do you talk about an entirely new perspective without mentioning elements that will help us make sense of it all?

At first glance someone might call these works abstract expressionist paintings, but they are not? The events Huda had listed out took place - it happened. I walked out the gallery convinced that majority were contemporary conceptual sculptures. They could be displayed in various ways but contained everything that she is trying to translate from water. All the information is there. 

The glass frames and just the fact that it's the easiest box to put Huda’s work in were the only reasons that made her work 'paintings'. 

But more than anything this is a research on water. On water, decentralised human-ness, time and borders.

The exhibition comes off as a research paper. It's a record of what water had to say that we label as conversations.

It's conceptual art. 

IN THE END

I told my therapist that I saw Huda's works. I told them that the thing that astonished me the most is her ability to let go. 

She let go completely, sat to the side, listened and was a vessel. She experimented, maybe even mastered, how best to capture what it had to say, and the pieces before you were her curated outcomes.

I told my therapist that Huda's work made me reflect on both my artistic and personal life. How it showed me that I need to learn to let go sometimes. I said that her work was a lovely reminder of how art can impact your worldview, how you can learn from it and have it positively impact your life if you let it. 

I wish, I truly do wish I had something snarky to say, just to make me feel like I am an original thinker. I truly cannot wait for her next exhibition/bodies of work. 

I am excited to see how Gallery350 is gonna top this. I just hope whatever their attempt is, they don't take too long. If nothing else, this exhibition has shown me how desperately we need more legitimate fine artists to set the cultural tone. 

Huda was friendly and gentle, not at all pretentious, answered all my questions and gave me just the right amount of context to find answers myself. You can tell she knows what she’s doing and that none of this is accidental. 

She is artistic and seemed successful enough to encourage even the most avant-garde Maldivian artist to keep going. The display of finesse and the critical form of fine art was awe-inspiring. I haven't felt proud of, or being Maldivian since The Daily Panic. 

If you have reached the end, and it's between 4pm - 10pm (except Sunday), go to Gallery350. Find the fucking gallery. Talk to Huda. Buy the fucking art. It's worth it all.