BORN in Hwange and based in Bulawayo, visual artist Shamilla Aasha has been a regular feature in group shows across the country for as long as her career has been in development.
For Those Who Have Gone Before Me, her recent exhibition at First Floor Gallery (FFG) Harare, was her first solo exhibition of paintings, and a rare outing for an artist from her region.
The Bulawayo artist ups the ante by switching her medium from a recent three dimensional project in which she used textile.
The artist demonstrates a fluidity between mediums that is as non-conforming as her Shona Indian heritage.
By bringing this show to the capital city, FFG breaks a sustained monotony and inbreeding of ideas.
Aasha’s latest body of work is made up of paintings in acrylic and oil paint on canvas.
The project includes a numbered series of 13 paintings titled Unleashed, one titled A Step in Time and the largest of the lot from which the title of the exhibition is derived.
Unleashed is a powerfully evocative word which for some might conjure a mad dog on a leash.
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The succinct title might also invoke a cataclysmic event propelled by a celestial force.
A Step in Time uncannily rhymes with the proverbial statement, “A stitch in time” in its abbreviated form.
For Those Who Have Gone Before Me sounds like a posthumous tribute to fallen comrades, but may actually be paying homage to creative role models and mentors.
There are many ways of responding to this body of work.
A Shona proverb Zviri kumwene wejira, kufuka kana kuwarira translating to it’s up to the owner of the blanket, to use it for covering their body or to lie on it.
As a first impulse, many followers of the artist may want to compare the paintings to her recent work in textile.
The colour palette and density of line are clearly carried over from that of her last body of textiles in the 2021 solo exhibition at FFG Victoria Falls, which was titled Breathing Time.
Aasha’s engagement with the line is a complex and multi-layered affair.
In her textile works, the yarn winding round a spine creates another line, crosshatching and weaving create a dense interconnected web and then sometimes the line is allowed to just unravel by itself.
Coming from three dimensional crocheting and embroidery to a two dimensional medium somehow feels reductive.
Nonetheless, summing up in her own words the artist has concluded that, “My embroidery and my textile work is resuscitated in my painting”.
About the exhibition, Aasha says: “It came about after a year and a half of absence. In that time, I was thinking about the authenticity of my mark making. At some point, I felt that I had lost my mark.”
It can be argued that with her level of discipline and maturity as an artist, she is less prone to losing her mark than get bored and seek a new challenge.
Something special happens when Aasha pushes the boundary like she did for the PPC Imaginarium for 2019 when she received special commendation in the Jewelry Category.
Cazimula, her creation for the contest, incorporated cement as a requirement and the result was a talisman-like object that seemed to possess magical powers.
The largest artwork in the recent exhibition revealed a lot of mesmerising detail to absorb the viewer from the surface.
The patterns could easily be compared to those from her textile works.
It also looks like a giant chunk of prehistoric amber preserving secrets from “before”.
Sometimes an artist offers more than what was bargained for.
English playwright William Shakespeare’s Hamlet used to be a staple in African schools.
In one scene, the protagonist chastises his friend with the statement: “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Coming to Aasha’s work, some are curious to understand her themes and to know exactly what was going on in her cranium.
Others are interested in her technical achievements and are able to judge the strength of her brush strokes and if she mixed the right amount of colour.
What many don’t expect in Aasha’s paintings is the artist’s sheer presence.
In a portrait of the artist displayed on the FFG website, the photograph taken by FFG manager Rodney Badza shows her posing with her arms folded across her chest.
The gesture is typically read as a sign of shutting people out.
Aasha’s direct non-confrontational gaze, however, acknowledges the viewer and appears to invite them towards a different dimension.
The image requires an audience to look beyond superficial implications of posture and body language.
On casual observation, Aasha’s temporary switch in medium might look like a huge loss for abandoning a wealth of textures and sculptural depth.
The only advantage will be that the artist is saved from backbreaking labour involved in handling textiles.
On the other hand, stitching and embroidery, although deeply meditative, are not conducive to a deeper consciousness that emanates from stillness.
In that regard, the fluid tai chi like gestures in painting have allowed Aasha to release something beyond the textual elements in her work.
