Society & Culture

Kamala Ishaq: A Sudanese Creative Artist

 

Sudan Events

A leading modernist from Sudan, Artist Kamala Ibrahim Ishag’s six-decade-long artistic practice has profoundly influenced Afroarab modern art scenes. Her early career operated within the ethos of the Khartoum School, known for carving an artistic identity for the newly independent nation by evolving a hybrid visual vocabulary that merged Arabo-Islamic and African elements and motifs.
In 1976, Ishag cofounded the Crystalists group, challenging the ethos of the male-dominated Khartoum School. The Crystalist Manifesto, published in the influential Al-Ayyam newspaper, called for a new post-modern aesthetic premised on transparency, diversity and existentialist theory.
Despite essaying such foundational roles, Ishag refuses to be defined by any singular movement or style, experimenting, instead, with different painterly strategies, styles, subjects and techniques.
Her work often features mythology, storytelling, the communal experiences of women and local histories, ranging from the prehistoric to the Christian and Islamic eras.
Ishag is known for her paintings of women, often with distorted faces and figures, combined with plants and other organic elements.
She uses dark and muted tones, visually reflective of the Sudanese urban landscape and natural environment.
She was inspired by the figurative paintings of Francis Bacon and had an interest in painter and poet William Blake’s exploration of spirituality and incarnation; the latter resonates with Ishag’s own contemplation of Zar, Sudanese women healing and spirit possession rituals.
Ishag has also collaborated with Sudanese poets, writers and scholars, creating cover designs and illustrations for their publications, through which has practice has gained wider appeal.
She was the 2019 Principal Prince Claus Laureate. Her work is in the collection of the Sharjah Art Foundation and Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York.
She served three decades as a tenured professor of the College of Fine and Applied Art, Khartoum.
Born in 1939 in Omdurman, Sudan, Ishag lives and works in Khartoum.

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button