Huma Bhabha Untitled, 2025
Four-color lithograph on Entrada paper
13 1/8 x 12 1/4 inches (33.2 x 31.1 cm)
Edition of 25, 6 AP
Printed by Derriere L'Etoile Studios, New York Published by Utopia Editions
An enduring and crucial aspect of her practice, Bhabha’s works on paper beckon the viewer with their exaggerated, ghoulish visages and unabashedly confrontational gazes. As the artist notes: “The relationship between my drawings and sculptures has evolved naturally, they are made side by side, related not in a literal way but rather as an absorbing of each other. I draw on the sculptures with oil stick, spray paint, and nail polish, and even the carving and scratching is a form of drawing. In the drawings, rather than inscribing and staining cork or foam, I am carving into the images that I draw on.”
The present lithograph depicts the head of a figure who wears a green hood—a recurring motif in Bhabha’s visual repertory that draws a connection between thirteenth- and fourteenth-century depictions of saints and Franciscan monks by artists such as Cimabue, Giotto, and Margaritone d’Arezzo and the ubiquitous symbol of the modern-day hoodie. The figure’s facial features have been replaced with a photographic image of a wolf pup who looks out at the viewers with wide eyes and a furry black snout. With eeriness, foreboding, and humor, the resultant hybrid form bridges the divide between what is monstrous, animal, alien, and deeply human. This edition was published on the occasion of Distant Star, Bhabha’s 2025 exhibition at David Zwirner Paris, which featured a series of related large-scale drawings of hooded figures.