just breathe...

 

Breath, Zara Hussain's exhibition at the Peabody Essex Museum in Massachusetts looks at the connection between lockdown and the breath. In this exhibition, she explores the importance of learning to breathe right now in this challenging pandemic era amid mask-wearing and lockdowns. A return to this essential movement of breath is like appreciating and returning to the essentials in life. The intersection between art and science is what she is interested in. Her work looks at colour and light in 2 and 3-dimensional spaces and explores how traditional forms can be re-enlivened with contemporary colour and meaning. Hussain's work embodies the old and the new, bridging the gap between traditions and cultures to represent the human experience simply through the idea of breath. 

A friend sent me a performance video she made the other day and it was about how women connect through water. It was slow and thoughtful and it reminded me of a long sigh. My abstract painting is similar right now, it helps me breathe out. It is a little gift I give myself every day. This is what I would like to pass on to others, with all the baggage that comes along with our current situation of needs and demands, an experience of what it means to be inexplicably human, to follow the brushstrokes, or whatever creative methods you use, to simply allow oneself a moment to breathe.