Platform for Art is proud to present new works by British artist Henna Nadeem.
Her exhibition in the ticket hall and subways at Piccadilly Circus tube station brings images of spectacular natural landscapes from a range of continents such as Africa, America and Australia right into the centre of London’s metropolis.
Each image is a combination of several, selected directly from books and magazines and united by collaging them together in carefully cut intricate designs.
In her previous work, Nadeem has gathered patterns and motifs largely from Islamic cultures. These new works also borrow from Islamic designs but include references from other cultural sources as well. There are Japanese and Moorish motifs, for example, and while these clearly stand out, others have a less easily identifiable origin.
Some images are the result of a blend of many different patterns. This integration seems apt in a site through which people from the world’s vast range of countries and cultures pass on a daily basis. Nadeem has perfected her collage technique to a degree that makes the physical cutting and gluing process almost impossible to notice.
However, these new works have undergone the further process of being digitally scanned and enlarged to several times their original size. Some of her patterned landscapes are now up to 6 metres long, stretching across several panels in the station.
This is the first time that Nadeem’s work has been seen on such a scale, where the careful cuts she has made by scalpel become revealed, and we can more easily imagine the painstaking process undertaken to produce these works.
