With only words and scattered snippets of facts about pomegranate and sesame, a small part of the region’s history buds into light. Accompanying these intimate scenes, Ahuja’s Pomegranate Molasses (2018) and Sesame Paste (2018), present us with traditional Middle Eastern food-a nostalgic view of an area most readily associated with war.
Her angular portraits feature cropped scenes and barren backgrounds, giving us incomplete narratives and brief glimpses into rich lives.
Mequita Ahuja, the woman in the painting, is an African American with South Asian heritage. Mequitta Ahuja, Material Support (Study III), 2017, Oil on canvas The artists exhibiting at Aicon Gallery remind us that there is always more that remains to be seen. We are distracted by a fragment, while the whole picture remains obscured. We expect conflict, but are fooled into a dance. And, like a bull, she tampers with our expectations. From looking at the whites of her eyes and how she holds herself, she is prepared, able. She grips a red, tasseled cloth half-draped over the canvas. There’s a woman unveiling a painting, on the right, by the entrance.
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