Contemporary artist Marium Agha’s studio is spread across many rooms that facilitate the multiple stages of the artmaking she engages in. Agha is constantly in and about the place. I follow her around in the studio and observe; we talk about her methods and approaches to various mediums as she shows me her works-in-progress. One of the tapestries that she has been constructing with her artisans is visually stunning.

As my intrigue peaks, Agha takes me to her office, where she researches for her new projects and manages her clients, artisans and assistants. Some of her completed works hang on the walls and I spend some time admiring the sheer level of scrupulous labour that must have gone into their making.

Agha’s contemporary artworks conceptually highlight experiential realities of women, and sometimes, men. Most of them comprise reworked images of male and female subjects with natural scenic backgrounds. These artworks that integrate craft-based methods (such as embroidery and stitching) began when, years ago, she came across young sellers in Karachi’s flea markets who urged her to look at ready-made tapestries.

“I found that the images in these works were about love and submissiveness, of men wooing and lurking seductively after women,” she says. “They would charm them with polite gestures. These images were so romanticised.

Marium Agha uses textiles to invent a visual language that reflects her sentiments and the existence of the modern-day woman

“They did not make any sense to me,” she chuckles. “This was not relatable. I wondered in what world these fairy tales actually took place!”

Agha bought one tapestry home. In a spell of creative experimentation, she splashed ink over its surface. Not satisfied with the unresolved result, she began to cut the work. She explains the process in vivid detail: “I removed the men and the women by cutting the figures and taking off the threads. I added new strings, even though textiles and embroideries were very new to me. With the help of an artisan, I reconstructed and sowed various threads together. It took me a year to achieve the result I felt slightly satisfied with.”

Agha’s works are audacious and confrontational. Often, she stitches provocative black silhouettes of nude female figures on handkerchiefs, questioning notions of shame, childhood, adulthood, innocence and unrequited love.

Her art dares viewers to dismantle their understanding of intimacy and the superficial romance between adults that is widely propagated in popular culture. The artist feels that our perception of love is not close to the realities of contemporary women, whose physical and sentimental toil is over and above that of their male counterparts.

“Splattered inks, yanked threads and now the eye-masks on my subjects are about inventing a visual language that is closer to my sentiments and the existence of the modern-day woman,” she says.

“The word ‘love’ has become very complicated in contemporary usage. I am still researching about the way this idea has been depicted in art in history, especially pertaining to women and their material lives. I try to then bring out these concepts through my tapestries and hand-embroidered handkerchiefs.”

One of Agha’s recent works, titled ‘Hear Hear’ (2021), won the Public Vote Prize at the Sovereign Asian Art Prize in Hong Kong this year. This work is a deconstructed tapestry created with threads where the imagery gives a “melting down effect” in the final work. “When I deconstruct something like this, I create a prospect to rewrite the existing narrative,” the artist says.

In managing her studio by herself, Agha has come across plenty of challenges that include facing intimidation from the men around her. Finding a safe working space in Karachi from where she could make art, along with managing her clothing and design brands (Laila and Urban Kolachi, respectively), has not been an easy feat.

With a very demanding routine, in which she manages her artworks, commercial ventures and her family, Agha continues to exhibit in leading art galleries. Her studio space is fascinating to me, as it constantly churns out a stream of creative processes, artisanal work, photographers, writers and thinkers.

I depart with a great desire to return and to witness her in the process of artmaking again.

Published in Dawn, EOS, August 7th, 2022