The Bonfire in Baroque

Going through my work in the miniatures category, I’m sure this piece stood out for you because it’s the only piece with this sort of Baroque styled frame around it. There’s a funny story to it actually, I went to Lahore, Pakistan in September 2020 and visited the Royal Fort, a citadel of the city of Lahore. I went to this really tiny, almost claustrophobic antique shop filled with so many things, it was almost overwhelming. I picked out a lot of things until suddenly my eyes x-rayed the shop one last time and found this frame locked inside a dusty old cupboard with cracked glass doors. The weight of it was perfect, the shape, beautiful and the size ideal for my miniature works and needless to say, so very contemporary and European. Anyway, the guy packed it up nicely and I brought it back with me to New York a few days later. Ever since, I got my hands on it, I had a vision of, obviously, putting a painting inside it. One day when I finally got an idea, I opened the back of the frame to measure its size and to my absolute surprise found a label which read Made in New York. I let out a small giggle and thought to myself “Well, how about that!”. This story instantly, at that point, became an incredible commentary on how cultures interchange and how trade and trade routes have, throughout our history, connected us. Additionally, it was also funny when I realized that just as I am looking back at the Persian and Mughal miniatures from the 16th and the 17th century, this frame is actually looking back to the Baroque Western art except it is completely kitsch, in the sense that the person who manufactured it probably doesn’t even know about it.

The whole idea to add yet another layer into my work, a layer in the form of an adorned gilded frame, came from the Pakistani artist Mohsin Shafi. His work is so intricate but for me it all makes sense and comes together when he places these beautiful hand-cut collages inside elaborate and heavily decorated frames. I, too, wanted to experiment with that idea and see how the painting and the frame interacted with one another, how the feeling of it changed instantly, because now the cartoon character is not the only contemporary element in the artwork, but the frame as well.

2020

The Bonfire

Watercolors and Gouache on paper in gilded frame

3 x 4 in.