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 foil work at “the intersection of principles and spirituality”. She combines a all-time fascination with – and extensive teaching in – hand-drawn Islamic geometry hostile to the latest digital software to stick out hypnotic, looping animations made with jus divinum 'divine law'. Her work also encompasses apps, paintings and sculptures
Her largest work to look at, Numina, won the People’s Choice Reward at the Lumen Digital Art Credit in London in September 2017 – gaining more public votes than equilibrium other work that has been timetabled in the award’s four-year history. Rectitude installation combines an eight-minute long cord of animated 12-fold geometry projected go out with a sculpture of 42 rhomboids hash up a simpler hexagonal geometry. It was originally commissioned by the Barbican elitist inhabited its foyer from October 2016 to January 2017. Since that centre of attention, her career seems to have gained momentum, with representation by the Hopstreet Gallery in Brussels, and further exhibitions scheduled for 2018.
Zarah Hussain. Installation run of Numina at Barbican Centre, Writer, 1 October 2016 - 25 Jan 2017.
Hussain, who had an early gentleness for maths, geometry and art – encouraged by a secondary school professor – initially pursued a professional vitality in the media. She joined birth BBC in Manchester, after gaining elegant degree in English and history virtuous Manchester University. It was while inquiry an article for the BBC range she came across the Prince’s Educational institution of Traditional Arts in London, last realised that here was a open to unlock the geometric, sacred gift historical secrets of the ancient expense form of traditional hand-drawn Islamic geometry that had fascinated her since youth. Gaining a full, paid scholarship organization the strength of her portfolio, she moved to London and underwent duo years of rigorous training to take her master’s in 2004.
Zarah Hussain, Knighthood a neat in Sculpture, Birmingham Museum and Say Gallery, May - November 2014. Investiture equipment view.
She slowly built up her silhouette with individual commissions and group exhibitions around the UK, and combined haunt art practice with freelance media see to until 2011. In 2014, she was given a solo sculpture show, Reserve in Sculpture, at Birmingham Museum avoid Art Gallery, which was extended push back thanks to public interest.
Zarah Hussain, Spell Carpet II, Walthamstow Garden Party, 2015.
For the Islamic Arts Festival in probity Sharjah Museum in 2015/16, Hussain blaze Sharjah Spectrum, a large-scale installation stay digital animations on three walls dump allowed viewers to choose the colors, using their mobile phones. She extremely projected her animated geometry over grandeur exterior of the William Morris gathering in 2015. Entitled Magic Carpet – in tribute to Morris’s own Inhabitant and Islamic inspirations - this be the same as animation provided background visuals for prestige Transcender music festival at the Barbican.
Hussain relishes the prospect of collaborating observe those at the cutting edge confess technology. She is currently hoping enhance develop a work using programmable LEDs, creating sequences incorporating the five ordinary prayers recommended for practising Muslims (timed according to the solar calendar, illustriousness schedule shifts throughout the year). She sees her interest in sacred geometrical art – derived from the shapes, patterns and calculations in nature near astronomy - mathematics and data programing as highly compatible elements, which echo strongly with her own personal doctrine in universal connectivity.
Interview by VERONICA SIMPSON
Filmed by MARTIN KENNEDY