Public Gallery is pleased to present Tangled toes, twisted ears, a duo exhibition by London based artists Anousha Payne and Laila Tara H. Through a new body of work created in dialogue, both artists explore the act of storytelling. Dissecting the linear narratives to which their practices and characters have been bound, they in turn reveal an unrestricted freedom of identity.Both artists' practices are rooted in heritage, Payne’s being oral tradition and Laila Tara H’s miniature painting, which forms a large part of their cross-over. Payne examines Indian folklore, carrying these stories through her practice and nurturing them into her own visions. Her hybrid ceramic sculptures are adorned with jewelry and textiles, which act as cultural signifiers, shapeshifting between matriarchal humanoids, transpersonal artefacts and animalistic performers.///
Laila Tara H similarly carries repetition in her paintings, the same figures and symbols have permeated her practice and become a personal visual lexicon. Infused with technique and imagery from Indo-Persian miniature painting, symbolic forms and multiple, concurrent narratives punctuate her works as she explores the body and the self, through experiments in scale, texture and negative space. As the two describe, “speaking together felt like bringing the works home to family because they are, at their core, stemming from the same intangible place, that of unwinding, deconstructing and reconstructing heritage.” Throughout the exhibition, in both its making and the works themselves, an exchange occurs. Stories are retold and reshaped as conversations play out between cultures, generations, friends, strangers or internally with oneself.
Artists
