Kamala Ibrahim Ishaq

Kamala Ibrahim Ishaq (Arabic: كمالا إبراهيم اسحق, born 1939) is a Sudanese artist and art teacher, known as one of the founders of The Crystalist conceptual art group in Khartoum. This group rejected common conventions in Sudanese modern painting of the 1960s and strived to find "an aesthetic and critical language that would emphasise the notions of pleasure and knowledge in order to permanently abolish differences and boundaries".[1] Ishaq has been called one of the most important female visual artists on the African continent.

Life

Ishaq studied art at the College of Fine and Applied Art of the Khartoum Technical Institute that later became the Sudan University of Science and Technology (SUST) in Khartoum from 1959 to 1963. Further to this, she pursued her postgraduate studies in painting, illustration and lithography at the Royal College of Art in London between 1964 and 1966. She was one of the founders of the conceptual art group called the "Crystalists", that challenged the traditional practices in the Sudanese art scene.[2][3] The other founders of the group were painters Muhammad Hamid Shaddad and Nayla El Tayib, and their intention was to challenge the so-called Khartoum School of painting and their traditional male outlook. After her stay in London, she returned to teach at her former college and also became dean of this art school.[4][5]

Artistic career

Influences and contributions

Ishaq artistic and spiritual influence goes back to the works of William Blake and the Zar spiritual rituals of Sudanese women.[4] These themes of existentialism and expressions of the culture of women served as central themes of Ishaq's work in the 1970s and 1980s. These influences distinguished Ishaq from her compatriots, who were inspired largely by notions inspired by Sudanese post-colonial independence and Islamic themes. If Blake and Zar provided personal inspiration, it was the Khartoum School of painting that first taught Ishaq to be an artist. The goal of that movement was a combination of African and Islamic cultural traditions. The School of Khartoum's transcultural blending presented a sense of Sudanese nationalism expressed in earthy colors and Arabic calligraphy.[6]

The Crystalist Movement

In 1978 Ishaq and two of her students, Muhammad Hamid Shaddad and Naiyla al Tayib, rejected the aesthetics of the Khartoum School by creating the Crystalist Movement. This new approach in Sudanese painting was marked by a public declaration in the form of the so-called Crystalist Manifesto. First published in Arabic as Al-Bayan al-Kristali, the document presented an artistic vision that attempted to work beyond the Sudanese-Islamic frameworks of the Khartoum School. Moreover, the Crystalists sought to internationalize their art by embracing an existentialist avant-garde, more akin to European aesthetics.[1]

The Cosmos is a project of a transparent crystal with no veil and eternal depth. The truth is that the Crystalists’ perception of time and space is different from that of others. The goal of the Crystalists is to bring back to life the language of the crystal and to transform language into something more transparent, in which no word can veil another – no selectivity in language. […] We are living a new life, and this life needs a new language and new poetry.

— The Crystalist Group, Khartoum, 1971

Aesthetically, the Crystalist manifesto understood the cosmos as a "project of a transparent crystal with no veils, but an eternal depth". Crystalist paintings often contain distorted human faces, trapped within clear cubes or spheres, and, as stated in their manifesto, "oppose[d] the trend which calls for skill and craftsmanship as a measure of good work." Inherent in the notions of the Crystalists was the feminist notion of unveiling — a significant facet amid the increasing Islamization of postcolonial Sudan.[6] Further, they rejected the Hurufiya movement that used Arabic calligraphy in artworks, positing that letters do not lead to great works of art.[2]

Reception

Along with other African artists, Ishaq's paintings have been shown at Saatchi Gallery in London in the exhibition titled Forests and Spirits: Figurative Art from the Khartoum School from September to November 2018, and one of her works from this exhibition was sold by auction house Sotheby's in London in 2020.[7]

Other major exhibitions include:[8]

  • Camden Art Centre, London (1970)
  • National Museum of Women in Art, Washington, DC (1994)
  • Sharjah Art Museum, UAE (1995)
  • Whitechapel Gallery, London (1995)
  • Breaking the veils: Women artists from the Islamic world, Royal Society of Fine Arts, Jordan (2002)
  • Institut francais of Khartoum (2015)
  • Shibrain Art Centre, Khartoum (2014)

See also

References
  1. Crenn, Julie. "Kamala Ibrahim Ishaq". Aware Women artists / Femmes artistes. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  2. Werner Daum and Rashid Diab (2009). Modern Art in Sudan In Hopkins, Peter G. (ed.) Kenana Handbook of Sudan. New York: Routledge, pp. 463-464. ISBN 0-7103-1160-5
  3. "Crystalist Group | Tate". www.tate.org.uk. 29 October 2017. Archived from the original on 11 March 2015. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
  4. "Sudan, Democratic Republic of the | IV. Painting, graphic arts and sculpture", The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture.
  5. Crystalist Group, Tate Etc.. Retrieved 30 May 2016.
  6. "Kamala Ishaaq". Sudan: Emergence of Singularities. Retrieved 21 March 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  7. "Kamala Ibrahim Ishaq | The Seat - Zar ceremony". www.sothebys.com/. 2020. Retrieved 15 February 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  8. Sharjah Art Foundation. "Kamala Ibrahim Ishaq". sharjahart.org. Retrieved 8 December 2018.

Further reading
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