Join us as your dreams become lucid reality and you are free to explore new worlds combining elements you might recognise and some you might not.
Mandy Zhang Art welcomes you to The Daughters that Dreamed, a duo exhibition showcasing the work of Natasha Malik and Jade Annalise Gaskin. Both artists use their brushes to explore imaginary spaces, mythical encounters and the trials of being a woman.
Malik’s storytelling is confined to her miniature paintings. This genre is informed by her Pakistani heritage and a practice steeped in history. Her mastery of watercolours and gouache is evident as the usual washes of colour and softly defined shapes that we associate with this medium serve as a backdrop to intricate brushwork and minute details. The physical landscapes serve as manifestations of the psyche as the inner becomes outer. These are permeable and porous worlds - a waking dream state where familiar natural forms are rendered uncanny, out of place and time.
Her human subjects are women, naked and unbound to identity. The female body is a site of conflict and a political subject in in of itself. Perhaps the turmoil of these scenes is confined within their bodies allowing for calmer surroundings. The title Daughter Tree explicitly references this relationship between woman and nature and it feels refreshing to be presented with nudity as unremarkable. Alone, they need not perform for others and exist with complete agency. The fawn, symbol of innocence and youth, is a stand-in for our inner child; here we find it with three heads. The trees grow upside down, floating rootless, and yet their intuition guides their branches in every scene. Despite these impossible elements, there is a quiet confidence in Malik’s work as the soft hues of her colour palette and flowing elements put us at ease. To observe is to escape and allow yourself to slip out of reality.
Gaskin’s world is a departure from this seeming serenity - her women are wilder. There is a sense of decided movement in her works as hands are outstretched, kettles steam and cats slink. Her background with prosthetics speaks to how she treats her canvas like a skin, heated from within and very much alive. Her figures take on a more active role and each work appears caught in motion, brimming with movement through layered printing techniques and flowing lines. Good Luck is full of fiery reds and is spread over two canvases appearing to reject the confines of just one. Gaskin, herself a biracial woman split between opposing Eastern and Western cultures, is keenly aware of how one whole can be divided and refuses to fit into a conventional box. If left long enough will this tale continue to expand cross-canvas?
Running alongside is a series of monotypes full of flowing forms and inviting chaos. Like Malik’s manipulation of the accepted borders between interior and exterior, Gaskin favours a new domestic space charged with memory and psychological tension. Gaskin’s crop is careful and we are not always privy to the whole scene, leaving just enough to let our imaginations run rampant. She states Paula Rego as an inspiration, notably her Dog Woman series, where her female subjects are on all fours, mouths agape, their gaze uninviting. She is challenging women’s need to conform to society's rigid standards and by pushing these boundaries into the surreal she shows us just how ridiculous they are.
These two artists enter into a fascinating dialogue as their parallel universes speak in tongues. By anchoring their liminal spaces with the female figure and feminine experience, they remind us of the accepted absurdity of our everyday. Malik’s figures are provocative in their indifference, untouched by the male gaze, whereas Gaskin’s ‘girls gone wild’ dominate their paintings and are defiantly free. Both artists play with natural motifs to influence and denounce societal expectations. Ultimately, The Daughters that Dreamed is a demonstration of female agency, set in atemporal settings but underpinned by a radically contemporary viewpoint.
