Fatima Jamil | Fragmentary essence within threads of a culture

Fatima Jamil | Fragmentary essence within threads of a culture

“As an artist, I have always gravitated progressively towards my connection to my cultural and social environment and the natural landscape that surrounds me. There is beauty and decay in nature and correlate to my imagery and creativity. I tend to reference classical painters’ who used flowers, weather literal or symbolic in many of their still-life art. I use botanicals in my art which are often interlaced with coded meaning to reference as metaphors.
Decorative art has been used for e.g.in Islamic Persian art, poetry, literature, Islamic tessellations, rituals, gender and sexuality. I am interested in capturing the process of beauty and the concept of the eventual dissolution of things. Basically, the impermanence of the inevitable, and the essence of ephemeral. My art is heavily infused with botanical backgrounds loaded with symbolic references which are personal to me and essentially relevant to my art making process.”

Fatima Jamil is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Orange County, California.
Franks is interested in exploring issues with self and identity due to her own experience of living in two geographically and culturally separate locales. This has led her to question her disassociation with a culture she grew up in and the polarities of a value system based on two seemingly mutually exclusive regions she calls home(s). She attempts to investigate and re-familiarize her history and culture with a new sensibility. Her work challenges the conformity of being boxed in a category of South Asian Art and rather to be understood and felt at a visceral level. Jamil’ work employs a narrative storytelling approach, using the figure as a key component set in somewhat surreal settings. The works are created using digital mixed media with composite photography that is often combined with traditional drawing and painting methods. Franks is currently working on large-scale sculptures, installations, and film/video.

“I am exploring the idea of the polarity of progression and decay, and the ephemeral essence of transience.”
She describes her recent sculptures as the idea of dealing with “dualism of opposing forces which convey either a discord or unanimity. The contrasted aspects within a culture, history, or religion emerge from either a collective doctrine or from a singular vision. The decorative ancient iconography, scripture, and calligraphy in these artworks go beyond the visual surface of aesthetics.”

Jamil has a BFA from Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Pakistan, where she was born and raised. She received an MFA from the California State University, Fullerton and has studied Digital Art at Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles.

www.fatimafranks.com | [email protected] |

Read the full article in the Gold List Special Edition #6