"(Merging of) Sun and Venus" By Meena (Sadia Fakih)

"(Merging of) Sun and Venus" : 
 

 The mythological hybrid lives in a multi-dimensional and liminal dream space, taken from different cultural legacies that have intermixed and influenced the artist in her life. The myths wrap around, interweave, and may be creations of each other. This non-linearity with the work's mythological and historical references, re-imagine pre-conceived conventions of identity. 
 

 This hybrid figure emerges from liquid ashes, in a transformative state - a radiating sun influenced by Persian miniature painting for a head, with the body of the classical Greek image of Venus de Milo.
 

 The figure may be perceived as androgynous, with the sun usually denoting masculinity, while rose petals decorate the breasts. Islamic geometric patterns decorate the sheet draping the figure from the waist down.
 

 In this intimate interspace, the figure is cut from drawing paper and displaced to inhabit an alien, transitory environment where there are disruptions and metamorphosis.
 

 Meena’s (Sadia Fakih) work incorporates ideas of esotericism, sufism and mysticism which counters the rational. Collaged elements like graph paper, represent rationality, convention and order, while decorative elements represent the perception of the South Asian feminine. By re-contextualizing ornament into an elevated and meaningful position in the work, ornament becomes active rather than passive. The mythological hybrid complicates and dismantles stereotypes by placing them in a non-hierarchical, ambivalent space, resisting a West vs. East binary view.