Jan Agha

I like to explore the impulses of self and the cultural barriers built around me without using any native cultural references. Instead, I use the impulses that are provoked from coming from a different background into a contemporary society, and aim to make religious and cultural iconography of my own. The colours I use are rhythms that explore intimate feelings such as angst, infatuation and sexuality. From super-sacred to hyper-sexual, my work explores the figure, flesh and the alchemy of paint.

My main media is oil paint on primed but unstretched canvas. I escape from mannerism, formalism and structure. The stretcher itself is more symbolic of a formal suit, a uniform – something predestined and ready for you to jump in and make world in a set-up role. I try to give life to paint that is thick, dirty and muddy, just like the Rabbi in the fable who makes golems out of clay, which is ironic for me as I come from a Muslim background. I use porcelain a formal and delicate material and transform it into heads that are ripe with expressions.In a way i carve out my own deities. 

I want my paintings to be like scrolls, not sacred but sacred in humour. Something that tell us about our insignificance but with jest . Something of a question for an individual in regards to our nature and impulses. Something that would address our eternal tragic cycle of violence and nihilism.