Rana Begum comes full circle with Taking Form, a colourful new exhibition in Dubai
Two swabs of colour meet at the corners. An orange, bold and of a sunset hue, is overtaken by a smear of forest green. The two colours don’t mix, making how they interact all the more remarkable. The original vivacity of the orange is subdued underneath the green, with only a dark trace of its outline remaining. Like the rest of the watercolour works in Rana Begum ’s exhibition at The Third Line,…
Rana Begum’s new exhibition, Taking Form, is making waves in Dubai with its vivid exploration of colour interactions. The centerpiece is a trio of tapestry pieces that showcase the artist's complex relationship with colour. These tapestries, suspended from the gallery ceiling, reveal a striking interplay of pigment on both sides – a front and back that never quite match.
Begum, a globally-established artist and former winner of the 2017 Abraaj Group Art Prize, tells The National that she feels she has come full circle with this work. Her artistic journey began in the vivid hues of her Bangladeshi upbringing, yet she struggled with abstraction and colour. Her earlier solo exhibition, Colour Codes (2007), focused on testing colour relationships, using adhesive tape and resin to fast-track these experiments.
Now, over two decades later, Begum returns to The Third Line as an accomplished artist, showcasing her mastery of colour. Her use of tapestry, linen canvases, and medium-density fibreboard reveal her ongoing fascination with how colours behave together. The tapestries, in particular, highlight the different interactions that emerge when colours meet on linen versus fibreboard, a testament to Begum's evolving expertise with pigment and material.
Written by urgent.news from The National UAE's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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