Huma Bhabha: Distant Star

In the main gallery are five sculptures made using Bhabha’s characteristic arsenal of multivalent techniques; she begins with cork, which she then carves, gouges, paints over, and otherwise marks up. Notably, these works also introduce new formal elements and sculptural processes: to create these sculptures, the artist rubs wet clay atop areas of these previously carved surfaces, adding an additional layer of coloristic and textural dimensionality.

Surrounding the sculptures, Bhabha presents a group of ink-and-collage drawings made atop photographs she has taken. An enduring and crucial aspect of her practice, Bhabha’s large-format multimedia drawings beckon the viewer with their exaggerated, ghoulish visages and unabashedly confrontational gazes.

Each of these large-scale works depicts a single hooded portrait—a new motif in the artist’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.

Bhabha's formally innovative practice pulls from a wide range of references, from those that span the history of art—including Egyptian reliquaries, African sculpture, Greek kouroi, Gandharan Buddhas, as well as the work of such modern and contemporary artists as Joseph Beuys, Louise Bourgeois, Alberto Giacometti, Robert Rauschenberg, and Franz West, among others—to quotidian influences such as science fiction and horror films and the makeshift structures and detritus of urban life.

In Bhabha's drawings, the facial features of the figures are omitted, save for black-rimmed, collaged eyes that gaze out at the viewer with a direct stare, relaying a sense of their varied endurance; with eeriness, foreboding, and humor, they bridge the divide between what is monstrous, animal, alien, and deeply human.

In the works on view, passages of material are juxtaposed with densely carved areas that delineate limbs or scarred flesh, resulting in forms that are embodied in a state of disorder, erosion, and entropy. They appear to be emerging from—or encased in—rubble and debris. Some works possess skeletal heads fashioned from salvaged animal skulls, clay, chicken wire, Styrofoam, and cork. These sculptures stand on black wooden plinths, further lending them the feeling of a mortal relic or an artifact from another world.

Viewed together, Bhabha’s work in two and three dimensions creates a dynamic dialogue that amplifies the tension between the ephemeral and the monumental. This interplay invites viewers to engage more fully with the layered psychological, art historical, and conceptual depth of her art.

A solitary beacon in the gallery’s front room is the titular cast-iron sculpture Distant Star, which stands tall like a mysterious sentinel. The sculpture appears to be eternally watching and waiting, suspended in a state of petrified solemnity. Its living rust-orange surface will continue to oxidize and evolve in appearance, affirming the notion of time as a primordial sculptor’s tool—a concept that Bhabha has repeatedly returned to in her oeuvre.