Seher Shah’s studio
Photo by Randhir Singh
(excerpt)
City Unknown: Notes from Defence Colony, New Delhi
‘My drawing table is in a quiet room overlooking my balcony, which provides the light I need to work. Flora such as the Gulmohar from Madagascar, Amaltas from South and South East Asia, and many types of Bougainvillea flower amidst the disappearing modernist houses. A stillness pervades our neighbourhood. Yet underneath the surface of this megacity, muscles are being flexed that silence those that fight against the mechanisms of fear.
I have been thinking about the relationships between drawing, anxiety, time and materiality. For most of the lockdown I have been working on small graphite drawings that use the soft application of lines to create a pale cross-hatch texture. This surface resembles muslin, or a thin gauze, something that is fragile and easily torn. The progression of day into night, and its repetition, and the corners and edges of architectural interior walls have found a strange echo in these drawings.'