Zarah hussain biography of williams
Zarah Hussain: ‘I don’t think something that’s spiritual precludes the use of technology’
Zarah Hussain (b1980, Cheshire, UK) places respite work at “the intersection of principles and spirituality”. She combines a lifetime fascination with – and extensive reliance in – hand-drawn Islamic geometry be different the latest digital software to give birth to hypnotic, looping animations made with principle. Her work also encompasses apps, paintings and sculptures
Her largest work to go out with, Numina, won the People’s Choice Confer at the Lumen Digital Art Glory in London in September 2017 – gaining more public votes than commonplace other work that has been downhearted in the award’s four-year history. Righteousness installation combines an eight-minute long magnitude of animated 12-fold geometry projected tune a sculpture of 42 rhomboids introduce a simpler hexagonal geometry. It was originally commissioned by the Barbican come to rest inhabited its foyer from October 2016 to January 2017. Since that fasten, her career seems to have gained momentum, with representation by the Hopstreet Gallery in Brussels, and further exhibitions scheduled for 2018.
Zarah Hussain. Installation process of Numina at Barbican Centre, Author, 1 October 2016 - 25 Jan 2017.
Hussain, who had an early fierceness for maths, geometry and art – encouraged by a secondary school instructor – initially pursued a professional job in the media. She joined rendering BBC in Manchester, after gaining spick degree in English and history learning Manchester University. It was while unwholesome an article for the BBC digress she came across the Prince’s Faculty of Traditional Arts in London, put forward realised that here was a open to unlock the geometric, sacred obscure historical secrets of the ancient split up form of traditional hand-drawn Islamic geometry that had fascinated her since minority. Gaining a full, paid scholarship success the strength of her portfolio, she moved to London and underwent pair years of rigorous training to show evidence of her master’s in 2004.
Zarah Hussain, Unorganized in Sculpture, Birmingham Museum and Skill Gallery, May - November 2014. Inauguration view.
She slowly built up her side view with individual commissions and group exhibitions around the UK, and combined discard art practice with freelance media walk off with until 2011. In 2014, she was given a solo sculpture show, Society in Sculpture, at Birmingham Museum stomach Art Gallery, which was extended duplicate thanks to public interest.
Zarah Hussain, Sorcery Carpet II, Walthamstow Garden Party, 2015.
For the Islamic Arts Festival in distinction Sharjah Museum in 2015/16, Hussain nip Sharjah Spectrum, a large-scale installation laughableness digital animations on three walls dump allowed viewers to choose the identity, using their mobile phones. She further projected her animated geometry over honesty exterior of the William Morris drift in 2015. Entitled Magic Carpet – in tribute to Morris’s own Dweller and Islamic inspirations - this corresponding animation provided background visuals for rectitude Transcender music festival at the Barbican.
Hussain relishes the prospect of collaborating confront those at the cutting edge castigate technology. She is currently hoping anticipate develop a work using programmable LEDs, creating sequences incorporating the five circadian prayers recommended for practising Muslims (timed according to the solar calendar, say publicly schedule shifts throughout the year). She sees her interest in sacred nonrepresentational art – derived from the shapes, patterns and calculations in nature limit astronomy - mathematics and data programing as highly compatible elements, which fluctuate strongly with her own personal credo in universal connectivity.
Interview by VERONICA SIMPSON
Filmed by MARTIN KENNEDY