Baseera Khan: InSearches: Hindu Kush
Baseera Khan makes paintings on paper, video animations and installations about, among other things, internationalism. Born and raised in a suburb of Dallas, Texas to Muslim-Indian immigrants, Khan’s experiences of India are either as a visitor or as an observer of the immigrant community in which she was raised. Her exploration of cultural hybridization, rooted in a second-generation immigrant experience, touches on themes of alienation, integration, assimilation and identity in flux.
Landscape is prominent in her work, but rather than defining a place or time, the ambiguous “border land” settings evoke dislocation, crossings and transitions. The characters populating these in-between spaces – such as cricket players and anthropomorphized camels or monkeys – represent states of being or stereotypical roles.
Influenced by pop culture, Western and South Asian aesthetic traditions and cinema, Khan’s work is the product of a keen observer existing between cultures, appropriating, editing and collaging in an effort to illuminate identity in an increasingly complex international culture.
In her first solo exhibition, Khan presents paintings in which her alter ego, Saag Paneer, navigates through various allegorical landscapes. She will also exhibit a new animation, “Looking With Your Eyes Closed.”
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Baseera KhanYou Are 35% of My Mind, 2009acrylic, ink and graphite on paper7.325 x 7.75 inches
18.6 x 19.7 cms -
Baseera KhanStudy for early Morning Eid, 2009acrylic, ink, graphite and collage on paper7.5 x 7.5 inches
19.1 x 19.1 cms -
Baseera KhanStudy for Looking with Your Eyes Closed, 2009acrylic, ink and graphite on paper and acetate7.75 x 7.75 inches
19.7 x 19.7 cms -
Baseera KhanLooking With Your Eyes Closed, 2009dvd. stop action animation. 1 min 15 secvariable
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Baseera KhanOn the Verge, 2009acrylic ink, enamel on paper44.5 x 46 inches
113 x 116.8 cms -
Baseera KhanReductive Histories of Saag Paneer, 2009acrylic ink on paper45.5 x 89.5 inches
115.6 x 227.3 cms -
Baseera KhanNo Shadow, No Fear, 2009acrylic ink, enamel on paper41.25 x 59.5 inches
104.8 x 151.1 cms