We explore the work of Rana Begum, which is enmeshed with beauty, vibrancy and architecture, and step inside the artist’s epic new north London studio
Artist Rana Begum experimenting with colourful metal mesh, one of her signature materials, in her north London studio. Ilinčić’s first collaboration consisted of a web of coloured fishing nets spun across the Giles Gilbert Scott-designed Durbar Court, the stodgy heart of the UK government’s Foreign Office. Carving up the lofty inner sanctum, the luminescent nets shot across three storeys of columns and landed on the marble floor to form a prismatic set for’s A/W 2022 collection.
Embedded within both practices is the experience and appreciation of architectural principles. While Ilinčić was privy to the concrete socialist landscape of her hometown of Belgrade, Serbia, Begum admired the impressive Indo-Islamic buildings during her childhood in Sylhet, Bangladesh.
, Stina and me.’ Underneath Begum’s cumulus puff of pigment – deceptively spongey although formed from metal mesh – dancers moved through the air, as dashes of pigment flew with them. A light breeze and the work softly swayed., like the best of Begum’s work, shifts with its environment and its viewer’s position. Exposed to the elements, the layers of lattice absorb and deflect light; colours intensify and shadows pattern the ground beneath it, evoking light streaming through a jali.
Begum’s clarity of focus transcends the abundance of colour, materials and forms. Each work is numbered, suggesting an infinite continuum and relentlessness in her experimentation with light. There are steadfast motifs, such as her predilection for grids and sharp lines seen in the crisp Donald Judd-like bars of her wall-based works, and the colour-changing prints for her recent solo show with Cristea Roberts Gallery.
‘I’ve always hated the idea of barriers and fencing,’ says Begum. So the studio’s entrance is opened up to the park, with acourt and courtyard garden that brush up to the cemetery’s boundary wall and siphon off its tranquillity. For Begum, barriers are emblematic of social neurosis. ‘What is it that gates allow you to do? They push people out, but at the same time they make you feel secure.’ This is a paradox Begum will take up in an upcoming New York project with the Art Production Fund.
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