Persisting Conditions

Without a doubt the images included in Zakkir Hussain’s 103° C Yellow Fever and Other Works are vexing, they speak a coded language that hovers between a world of surrealistic wakefulness and horrifying nightmare. They seem to offer no relief; the endless repetitions seem to disallow closure. The paintings in this show reveal gaping wounds that refuse to clot - the flesh of the body does not knit together, heal, and silently disappear into a mirage of distant memory. Admittedly, I struggled with what to say about these works, their language of excess and pain overwhelmed me and I immediately wanted to retreat into a world of sterile intellectualism to stave off the discomfort I felt. I wrestled with my need to force the images into frames of the abstract, the distant and the safe. I struggled with my compulsion to footnote and reference but then it struck me that my impulse could possibly disservice both the images and myself. Instead, I began to think about how Hussain’s recent work demands the act of bearing witness; I considered how they require us to stand before them, as if before a cosmic tragedy unfolding upon a stage.

Within this brief essay there are two clusters of images I would like to focus upon. I have chosen them not only because they are densely populated and they speak of a collective experience but also, because to my mind, they are stylistically antithetical. These images are untitled, which strikes me as fitting for it encourages an open-ended engagement; however, it does make the task of discussion more challenging. I hope that the reader will indulge me as I rely upon visual analysis as a means of identification.

The first image I would like to address is appropriately drawn and quartered; the partitioned structure echoes its disparate content. The action unfolds upon a shallow yellow stage framed by the drape of entangled equipment and people. This slash of solid colour grounds the image within a dramatic space. The figure I have cast as the tragic protagonist of this drama lies stretched out on a gurney, an oversized ear seems to register the dissonance around him but his stupefied expression defies this assumption. The shell of his eviscerated body is packed with the redundant hearts of others. At some point in time the hearts fuelled the train, but now, their connective artery lies severed. The train’s immobility echoes in the shackled appendages of the man whose restraints are as superfluous as the disconnected hearts- for he has no feet. Next to him, a naked man, save for his black boots, sits upon the pot, he too is restrained, but perhaps it is for the better, as his head has been replaced by a gnashing maniacal machine. The centrifugal thrust of the painting draws our eye up and over to rest upon a female form, and like many of the figures in this image, she is in a state of metamorphosis. Her eyes are strangely skewed and she has been deliberately silenced by the prohibitive red seal that rests upon her lips. The image continues to sweep outward, detailing the intricacies of pain; each vignette chafes the eyes and allows no respite from the savagery. Like a fever that refuses to break, these figures haunt us with their odd juxtapositions of the medical, the metamorphic and the murderous.

Whether the next two images I discuss are positioned as a pair on the walls of the gallery or not I see them as possessing a dialogic relationship. Their union is divined through the artist’s palette – the hues of blue, red and purple and the manner in which the pictorial mise-en-scene is detailed. Where one image focuses upon the central figure of a contemporized minotaur, the other speaks of diverse dramatic personas coalescing around yet another booted man with gnashing teeth for a head. However, these two images are also bound together by the bridge of humanity that hems in the upper reaches of the picture plane. In the former, the minotaur is no longer a classical hybrid creature, his humanity is readily apparent and his animalistic character is simply expressed through the horned helmet he wears. Stripped naked he sits upon a spike that impales an animated garment. The gendered garment draws the creature forward as he commands it with the delicate strings of control. But the strings extend beyond the image as if to suggest the illusion of control and to hint that there is some other driving force standing beyond our vision. Indeed, the beast is held fast to the spike by a metal girdle, his splayed toes are the only indication that he struggles against the directives of an unknown puppet master. The unnamed and unknowable power driving the minotaur seems to also impel the people on the bridge forward. In their haste, they are oblivious to that which they trample underfoot; they march forward without consciousness of the destruction. They, like the arterial valves that weave between them, are disconnected and alienated.

The theme of disconnect carries into the next image which, as I said previously, brings together a large cast of characters. Again we are confronted with the leitmotif of empty dresses and tortured bodies but, unlike the other works of art discussed here, the figures in this painting seem to be strangely united in their isolation. The dramatic cohesion is orchestrated by the booted man yet his importance is not declared through scale, but rather it is expressed by his actions. Poles with cupping devices rotate out from his multiple mouths; again a centrifugal force organizes the visual action. To be sure, this pair of images is strikingly different from the others included in the exhibition. They are set apart by virtue of their calculated construction and the artist’s attention to the rules of composition. The chaotic disarray of the other images with their drips and gestural lines are evacuated here and we are left with the deliberations of order and what may happen when we submit to suppression.

Despite the graphic brutality, there is a resounding silence, a restless quietude within many of Hussain’s images that compels, through close examination, a need to create a story. This is not to say that these paintings are in anyway narrative, there is no story embedded within them, rather, if there is a tale to be told it is up to the viewer to do so. Still, in the end one is left wondering how to reconcile these images. How is one to resolve the figural transitions from man to machine to monster? How does one make sense of the shift from pure emotional expression to extreme emotional restraint? I cannot presume to say how it is for the reader or the visitor to the gallery, but for me I find an ironic measure of solace in the endless transformations occurring within these images. For me, the transitions capture the liminal; the marked spaces between momentous change and final resolution that ultimately leads to new perspectives. I believe that the bricolage of figures articulate stations of intensified emotion and through them we are able to map our own cathartic journey. Catharsis purifies and purges our emotions through the act of identification and transference. Its efficacy relies upon tragic figures to act as surrogates. By identifying with these proxies and shadowing their journey through pain and suffering, perhaps we are able to expel our own. It is through the sympathetic experience and the voyages of emotional discovery we are able to arrive at a place of compassion. From here, we may be able to cultivate greater understanding of not only ourselves but of others. Hussain’s gesture creates the potential for cathartic release, in witnessing the horror and experiencing the shock, maybe we will no longer stand unmoving on the shorelines of indifference.

Kathleen Wyma is an art historian based in Vancouver, Canada. Her research focuses upon contemporary art in post Independence India. She currently teaches art history and film studies at the University of the Fraser Valley.

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