The dark and the light, the oppositions between them and the music they can create together, are the territory Pakistani-American artist Anila Quayyum Agha explores in her installations.
Laser-cut steel boxes enclose a light source that broadcasts their lacy patterns — some inspired by Islamic geometric motifs — throughout a room. The shadow play turns the walls, ceiling and floor into paintings in their own right, enclosing the viewer in a box of their own.
The sculptures are simultaneously massive and delicate, inviting close scrutiny of the intricate cutwork while appearing forbidding, almost frightening from farther away. Agha has said that while some of her works are inspired by personal tragedy and some are a conceptual reply to larger issues in immigration and misogyny, “People need to be rejuvenated and made to feel hopeful.”
The artist will be present at the opening-night party, as well as conducting a gallery walkthrough the following morning.
Opening, 6:30 p.m., Friday, June 23; gallery tour, 11 a.m. Saturday, June 24, Mennello Museum of American Art, 900 E. Princeton St., mennellomuseum.org, $10.
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This article appears in Jun 21-27, 2023.
