This article features an interview with artist Nusra Latif Qureshi, whose first major solo exhibition, Birds in Far Pavilions, is on display at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The article explores Qureshi's work, focusing on her fragmented female figures, recurring motifs, and the tension between revealing and concealing.
The escalator carries me down to Level 2 of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, where I'm set to interview Melbourne-based, Pakistan-born artist Nusra Latif Qureshi, whose first major solo exhibition is on display here. Birds in Far Pavilions spans three decades of work — from Qureshi's early work when she was training as a painter in Lahore, to her newest installation, Museum of Lost Memories (2024).
I peek into the exhibition while waiting for Qureshi and I'm drawn to a small painting, Sacred Boundaries (1995). At first, I miss it: the figure of a woman fleeing at the frame's edge. Once I see her, I'm struck by how this partial concealment creates tension, a familiar push-and-pull between revealing and concealing.In Sacred Boundaries, Qureshi's 1995 work, the fleeing figure amplifies tension beyond the frame.When Qureshi arrives, I recognise her immediately. She resembles the doubled figure in a painting of hers I've just finished studying, Besides Me (1997). Qureshi has a warm and composed presence — confident yet unembellished — like the women in her paintings who carry a quiet assurance. Nervous — I'm an artist, not a journalist — I begin our interview by asking a standard question about the exhibition's chronology. She smiles, her voice calm: 'We didn't focus on chronology. Instead, we wanted a loose thematic flow. Matt and I looked at how images repeat, how themes simmer beneath the surface.' I ask about the fleeing woman in Sacred Boundaries, and Qureshi tells me this figure anchors the exhibition's energy. I wonder if the women in her paintings represent her.Qureshi's female figures challenge conventions. She rejects static portrayals of women as symbols of beauty or divinity. Her fragmented figures and recurring motifs — hands, fabric, pistols, birds, threads — oscillate between presence and absence. They draw viewers in, asking them to complete the narrative.'I want to reclaim that space on their terms, not as objects of someone else's gaze
ART EXHIBITION INTERVIEW NUSRA LATIF QURESHI FEMALE FIGURE
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