27 Jan 2016

Owais Husain: House of Cards at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore

International Dubai-based artist Owais Husain, son of the late M.F Husain, presents his latest installation House of Cards at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, produced in collaboration with the students of LASALLE College of the Arts - South East Asia's foremost arts institute.

Husain's most recent project typifies his contemporary outlook, in which he helps the next generation to create a personal narrative, or mythology, through the practice of art. The House of Cards initiative explores the idea of homeland and mapping identity through the continually changing landscape of visual language. In this way, Husain encourages students to think about identity and the role of image-making in all forms, inspiring them to explore in greater depth the personal context and defining influences in their work.

The idea of the artist as storyteller or cartographer, charting the visual lexicons of their time the next generation is a core theme of Husain's work. Using film, photography, painting, sculpture, installation and poetry - in various combinations or on their own - Husain creates visually textured works that both reference his roots in a traditional Indian figurative style and embody his constant pursuit to evolve and contemporize that iconography.

The exhibition is centered on the concepts and artistic achievements of a workshop conducted in September 2015 by Husain with students from LASALLE's faculties of Fine Arts and Media Arts.

In the workshop, he asked students to consider the theme of identity both within the context of today's modern world where appropriation, trading and even stealing of individual and collective cultures and identities have become commonplace, and as artists, through their modes of expression. The workshop aimed to foster creativity in young artists and encouraged them to express their personal concepts of identity through painting, film and photography.

House of cards' central artwork is a house-like, multi-paneled installation that juxtaposes photographs and paintings by Owais Husain with images produced by the students in the workshop. This cross-cultural and cross-generational exhibition explores how artists interpret identity through the evolution of image-making. In addition to the title work, the exhibition includes Owais Husain's site-specific installation, which presents a playful combination of abstract linear marks and small ink drawings. A supporting video created by LASALLE's Faculty of Media Arts documenting the creative process for both Husain and the students is shown alongside the central artwork in Praxis Space.