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The Africa Institute collaborated with Serpentine and Sharjah Art Foundation (SAF) to present a major exhibition of pioneering Sudanese artist Kamala Ibrahim Ishag. The exhibit was titled, Kamala Ibrahim Ishag: State of Oneness.
Ishag has forged a unique and expansive practice that is not defined by a singular style or movement. Her work embraces and expresses different earthly and spiritual landscapes and histories of Sudanese visual culture across many eras. Both a master modernist and innovative contemporary painter, Ishag continues to influence artists internationally and has been a prominent teacher and mentor to generations of practitioners, especially in her role as a professor of painting for over 30 years in Sudan. She was amongst the first women artists to graduate from the College of Fine and Applied Art in Khartoum in 1963. Later, she became the leading figure of the conceptual Crystalist Group in Sudan during the 1970s and 1980s.
The exhibition celebrated the breadth and importance of Ishag’s work and offers London audiences insights into her worlds, featuring works spanning from the 1960s to today, including her time in London studying at the Royal College of Art (RCA) from 1964-66, in addition to new paintings created in her Khartoum studio that have previously never been presented. Alongside large-scale canvases and works on paper, Ishag also paints on different surfaces such as calabashes, screens and leather drums. A selection of the artist’s graphic design practice and material from her personal archive offers context to her prolific career and experiences of living and working predominantly in Sudan, in addition to a shorter period of self-exile in London and Muscat, in the Sultanate of Oman for part of the 1990s and early 2000s.
Kamala Ibrahim Ishag (b.1939) was amongst the first women artists to graduate from the College of Fine and Applied Art in Khartoum in 1963. This was followed with studies in Mural painting at the RCA in London between 1964 and 1966 and Lithography, Typography and Illustration from 1968-9. In the early 1960s, Ishag was considered a member of the Khartoum School, together with contemporaries including Ibrahim El-Salahi and Ahmad Shibrain, who collectively forged a modern identity for the then newly independent nation by drawing on both Arabo-Islamic and African artistic traditions. However, Ishag’s role as an international pioneer was established in her co-founding the conceptual art movement known as the Crystalists in the mid-1970s with her students Muhammad Hamid Shaddad and Nayla El Tayib among others. The Crystalists leaned towards a postmodern style and positioned themselves in opposition to the Khartourm School’s male-dominated and identity politics-centered view. The manifesto, written by Shaddad and signed by Kamala Ishag and other members of the group, was published in the Khartoum newspaper al-Ayaam in 1976, and advocated for a new aesthetic modelled on diversity, transparency, and existentialist theory.
Salah M. Hassan is Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences in Africana Studies, Director of the Institute for Comparative Modernities (ICM), and Professor of Art History and Visual Culture in the Africana Studies and Research Center, and the Department of History of Art and Visual Studies, Cornell University. Salah M. Hassan is the Director of The Africa Institute, Sharjah, UAE.
The Africa Institute collaborated with Serpentine and Sharjah Art Foundation (SAF) to present a major exhibition of pioneering Sudanese artist Kamala Ibrahim Ishag. The exhibit was titled, Kamala Ibrahim Ishag: State of Oneness.
The Africa Institute collaborated with Serpentine and Sharjah Art Foundation (SAF) to present a major exhibition of pioneering Sudanese artist Kamala Ibrahim Ishag. The exhibit was titled, Kamala Ibrahim Ishag: State of Oneness.
Ishag has forged a unique and expansive practice that is not defined by a singular style or movement. Her work embraces and expresses different earthly and spiritual landscapes and histories of Sudanese visual culture across many eras. Both a master modernist and innovative contemporary painter, Ishag continues to influence artists internationally and has been a prominent teacher and mentor to generations of practitioners, especially in her role as a professor of painting for over 30 years in Sudan. She was amongst the first women artists to graduate from the College of Fine and Applied Art in Khartoum in 1963. Later, she became the leading figure of the conceptual Crystalist Group in Sudan during the 1970s and 1980s.
The exhibition celebrated the breadth and importance of Ishag’s work and offers London audiences insights into her worlds, featuring works spanning from the 1960s to today, including her time in London studying at the Royal College of Art (RCA) from 1964-66, in addition to new paintings created in her Khartoum studio that have previously never been presented. Alongside large-scale canvases and works on paper, Ishag also paints on different surfaces such as calabashes, screens and leather drums. A selection of the artist’s graphic design practice and material from her personal archive offers context to her prolific career and experiences of living and working predominantly in Sudan, in addition to a shorter period of self-exile in London and Muscat, in the Sultanate of Oman for part of the 1990s and early 2000s.
Kamala Ibrahim Ishag (b.1939) was amongst the first women artists to graduate from the College of Fine and Applied Art in Khartoum in 1963. This was followed with studies in Mural painting at the RCA in London between 1964 and 1966 and Lithography, Typography and Illustration from 1968-9. In the early 1960s, Ishag was considered a member of the Khartoum School, together with contemporaries including Ibrahim El-Salahi and Ahmad Shibrain, who collectively forged a modern identity for the then newly independent nation by drawing on both Arabo-Islamic and African artistic traditions. However, Ishag’s role as an international pioneer was established in her co-founding the conceptual art movement known as the Crystalists in the mid-1970s with her students Muhammad Hamid Shaddad and Nayla El Tayib among others. The Crystalists leaned towards a postmodern style and positioned themselves in opposition to the Khartourm School’s male-dominated and identity politics-centered view. The manifesto, written by Shaddad and signed by Kamala Ishag and other members of the group, was published in the Khartoum newspaper al-Ayaam in 1976, and advocated for a new aesthetic modelled on diversity, transparency, and existentialist theory.
Salah M. Hassan is Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences in Africana Studies, Director of the Institute for Comparative Modernities (ICM), and Professor of Art History and Visual Culture in the Africana Studies and Research Center, and the Department of History of Art and Visual Studies, Cornell University. Salah M. Hassan is the Director of The Africa Institute, Sharjah, UAE.
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