Written by: Iman Shaggag
Kamala Ibrahim Ishag, Procession (Zaar), 2015, oil on canvas, 175 x 175 cm, courtesy the artist. Photo taken at Serpentine Gallery by Fatima Khalid 2022
I arrived in London on the 5th of October, World Teachers Day. This year’s celebration “promotes lifelong learning”, which seems fitting with the occasion of my visit. A day ahead of the exhibition opening by pioneering Sudanese artist and art teacher Kamala Ibrahim Ishag, at the Serpentine South Gallery, Kensington Gardens in London.
| She taught at the College of Fine and Applied Art in Khartoum, Where she graduated in 1963, after Margarit Fanoos, the first female graduate of the art school, as we know it now, in 1957. Kamala influenced numerous artists from Sudan. The first time I saw her and her work, when I was in my first year at the art School in Khartoum, 1992. Watched her paint, on a canvas approximately three meters in width and meter and a half in height, stapling it on one of the walls at the painting studio. The painting started with a toned canvas with a layer of raw umber, then muted green plants sprouting around the canvas like a garden on the transparent brown background. I used to come every day to observe the changes and what she was doing if she was present. Had a busy schedule as “freshman”, between seven hours of drawing classes, basic design, sculpture, ceramic, and calligraphy, then lectures on Art history, Philosophy & criticism, psychology, English and Arabic language translation. I was working hard with the intention to have the freedom to choose which department to enroll in. When I enrolled into the Drawing and Painting department the following year, I found out that she resigned from her teaching position, and traveled abroad. It was very sad news to me and my fellow classmates. But I kept looking for her work, I saw some of her work at the Sudan National Museum. |  Pamphlets of her murals at the Sudan National Museum - Photo by Iman Shaggag 2022 |
 “Loneliness” 1987, oil on canvas, Photo by Iman Shaggag 2022 | Years later and after graduating from art school, when I was in Philadelphia and was working on my then project to promote Sudan visual art, via the Sudan Artists’ Gallery website around 1998. Artist Muriel Magenta the curator of the World’s Women Online website contacted me asking if I would like to submit my artwork to her site and if I can let other women artists from Sudan know about it. When I viewed the site, and looked up artists from Sudan, was pleased to see one painting by Kamala, titled “Loneliness” 1987. She was the only woman artist from Sudan on the site. I remember asking Magenta if she can share Kamala’s contact information, she wrote back, saying that she did have the photo of the painting through a curator who wouldn’t share Kamala’s contact information! |
SHIBRAIN Gallery (at the yard) in the winter of 2014, Khartoum- a group of artists with Kamala after the opening of her exhibition - Photo by Sari Ahmed Alawad I traveled back to Sudan in 2013, I had the privilege of attending her first exhibition in Sudan after many years of her being abroad. Khartoum was celebrating her return to her homeland! The exhibition was at the SHIBRAIN Gallery in the winter of 2014, which was a grand meeting for generations of her students, colleagues and friends. That was the first time for me to get to know her up close, and we kept in touch ever since. Another solo exhibition in 2015 at the French Cultural Center in Khartoum, was another of Khartoum celebrations of her return.
Then we exhibited together, in a number of group exhibitions in Khartoum, two of which in celebration of women at, Elgenid Cultural Center and French Cultural Center. We had a joint talk at Ahfad University for Women, in 2014, organized by the late artist Alaadin Elgezouli. Then in 2019, we were in a group exhibition in Dubai, UAE.
Then we exhibited together, in a number of group exhibitions in Khartoum, two of which in celebration of women at, Elgenid Cultural Center and French Cultural Center. We had a joint talk at Ahfad University for Women, in 2014, organized by the late artist Alaadin Elgezouli. Then in 2019, we were in a group exhibition in Dubai, UAE.
Was pleased to meet her at The Khartoum School exhibition in Sharjah in 2016, which was organized by Sharjah Art Foundation, where Kamala had a whole gallery space for her work, and two of her paintings exhibited with two of her students, from the crystalist school of thought. It was a great opportunity to see her work alongside many generations of artists, some qualified as her teachers, like Bastawi, some as her classmates like Amir Nour, and many as her students like Abduallah Bola.
The Khartoum School, posters at Sharjah Art Museum. Organized by Sharjah Art Foundation 2016 Photo by Iman Shaggag 2016
I love her work in terms of subject matter, techniques, and mediums. As for the subjects of her paintings, she works with the supernatural the unseen, the spiritual, the connection between plants and women. I do share her love for plants and for painting women but our techniques and mediums are vastly different! When I visited her home where she shared her affection for plants, she talked about a hundred-year-old tree in her family house. From her paintings, anyone can see her relationship with plants and flowers. How she sees women or humans connection with nature, in ways that we can see, and others we can’t even comprehend. She pulls images from her rich memories, from conversations, from the news. Her paintings mostly in subtle colors, but in some occasions, she starts with bold colors, her work starts and ends in a very different way. If you don’t have a keen eye you won’t know the same painting, if you had a chance to observe it's beginning! She paints in layers, transparent layers of paint, and images, mostly the composition is the only thing that’s left intact from the beginning of the painting to the end.
Her exhibition, "States of Oneness" at the Serpentine gallery, exhibits paintings from the 1970s, with her latest painting completed in 2022. The space is excellent and befitting Kamala’s artwork, greeting the visitors a short biography, then her paintings and paintings on gourds and tar drums, a free standing painted wooden partition, all of which seemed at home in the orange light of the setting sun, when I first saw the exhibition on the opening evening.
Her exhibition, "States of Oneness" at the Serpentine gallery, exhibits paintings from the 1970s, with her latest painting completed in 2022. The space is excellent and befitting Kamala’s artwork, greeting the visitors a short biography, then her paintings and paintings on gourds and tar drums, a free standing painted wooden partition, all of which seemed at home in the orange light of the setting sun, when I first saw the exhibition on the opening evening.
Photo by Iman Shaggag 2022 Beside some of her graphic design work, old photos, exhibitions pamphlets, and a visitor’s book with comments about her solo exhibition in Khartoum in April 1974 at the Sudan National Museum, opened to a page where the late political figure Mahmoud Mohammed Taha wrote a comment that he visited the exhibition with seventy of his fellow republican sisters and brothers. While another comment, by Abdulhady Rizgallah (Al dwaim Hospital) stating that for him, the exhibition is not familiar and he couldn’t understand anything except for the beautiful frames! Then he suggested, to put up some statements or guides to explain every painting. This statement still, lingers in every art exhibition, in some occasions even from “intellectuals”, many think it’s the visual artists job to spoon feed them information about art and how to see it! While they go far and wide to read about politics, economics, music and other fields of knowledge!
Portraits, 1973, oil on board. Private collection Photo by Iman Shaggag 2022
Kamala’s painting, “Blues for the Martyrs”, 2022, oil on canvas, I believe she pulled inspiration from one of the saddest moments in the December Sudanese Revolution. When young peaceful protesters were attacked at the sit-in, in Khartoum, and some were thrown into the Nile by the armed forces. “Blues” is referring to “blues”, feeling blue, sad and depressed, at the same time touching the popular social media trend “Blue for Sudan”. Yet all those faces underwater, are following the light and sprouting into green plants. This painting shows some what a different color pallet than the rest of her paintings.
Blues for the Martyrs, 2022, oil on canvas, Courtesy the artist Photo by Iman Shaggag 2022
One of the most overwhelming paintings in the exhibition, called “Bait Al-Mal”, 2018-19 oil on canvas, which is an old neighborhood in Omdurman (where she was born). The painting is childlike drawings of trees, and people on a bird’s eye view. The “neem” trees, or so I thought, laying around perhaps taking a siesta, as the homes' occupants laying in groups, most of which looks like women to me, they seem like they are deep in conversations. On the other hand, the painting layout looks like the name of the neighborhood in English written backwards with rows of trees and people, especially women, as if it’s a family “tree”! It reminds me of when we used to visit my grandparent's home, sleeping in the “hoosh” yard under the vast sky, surrounded by trees. For me this painting tells of the spirit of homes and neighbors in Sudan, the connections between people, plants, and the land. Like a stream of emotions and memories, running through the whole neighborhood and the painting. The name of the exhibition as if referring to this painting, the “states of oneness”, unity and coming together, humans, land, creatures and sky!
Bait Al-Mal, 2019, Kamala Ibrahim Ishag, oil on canvas, Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Iman Shaggag 2022
Self Portrait, 1976, ink on paper Courtesy the artist- Photo by Iman Shaggag 2022 I like the fact that she keeps on painting, while it’s unfortunate to say that women artists historically, mostly than present time, are far less in numbers and have far less opportunities to exhibit and progress!
Would like to conclude with what Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, about artists: “Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting, but ripening like the tree which does not force its sap and stands confident in the storms of spring without the fear that after them may come no summer. It does come. But it comes only to the patient, who are there as though eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly still and wide. I learn it daily, learn it with pain to which I am grateful: patience is everything!”
Kamala I. Ishaq, is a painter, a gardener, and a teacher, all three require patience and dedication.
The gardener spirit in her paintings is so present that her exhibition is a garden of a different taste, and her painterly spirit is present indeed in her garden if you are one of the lucky few who visited her home in Khartoum. Her exhibition is heaven for the green color, a magical world that combines women with trees, seeds, and faces, women in crystals in some parts, roots in others, all married in a display of different sorts of emotions.
At first, you feel relaxed seeing plants everywhere, with shades and tones of green color. Then you see disfigured faces and bodies of women, maybe, they are in pain, suffering, anguish, and trauma of some kind, or maybe expressing themselves in a loud manner. Women immerging in all her paintings and look at the viewer from all directions at the exhibition’s walls. As if showing off, their lives.
Would like to conclude with what Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, about artists: “Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting, but ripening like the tree which does not force its sap and stands confident in the storms of spring without the fear that after them may come no summer. It does come. But it comes only to the patient, who are there as though eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly still and wide. I learn it daily, learn it with pain to which I am grateful: patience is everything!”
Kamala I. Ishaq, is a painter, a gardener, and a teacher, all three require patience and dedication.
The gardener spirit in her paintings is so present that her exhibition is a garden of a different taste, and her painterly spirit is present indeed in her garden if you are one of the lucky few who visited her home in Khartoum. Her exhibition is heaven for the green color, a magical world that combines women with trees, seeds, and faces, women in crystals in some parts, roots in others, all married in a display of different sorts of emotions.
At first, you feel relaxed seeing plants everywhere, with shades and tones of green color. Then you see disfigured faces and bodies of women, maybe, they are in pain, suffering, anguish, and trauma of some kind, or maybe expressing themselves in a loud manner. Women immerging in all her paintings and look at the viewer from all directions at the exhibition’s walls. As if showing off, their lives.
Kamala with her painting, Zar, 1973, oil on canvas, Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah- Photo by Fatima Khalid 2022
The exhibition will run from 7th October 2022 to 29th January 2023. Credits as they appear on the Serpentine website Kamala Ibrahim Ishag: States of Oneness is organized by Sharjah Art Foundation and Serpentine in collaboration with the Africa Institute, Sharjah. It is co-curated by Hoor Al Qasimi, Director, of Sharjah Art Foundation; Salah M. Hassan, Director, of The Africa Institute, Sharjah, and Professor at Cornell University; and Melissa Blanchflower, Curator Exhibitions and Public Art, with Sarah Hamed, Assistant Curator, Serpentine.
La Pieta (Madonna), 2014, oil on canvas- Private collection - photo by Iman Shaggag 2022
Two Women (Eve and Eve), 2016, oil on canvas- Courtesy the artist, photo by Iman Shaggag 2022
*The name Kamala is girl's name of Hindi origin meaning "lotus or pale red; or, a garden.”
Kamala I. Ishag biography: https://sharjahart.org/sharjah-art-foundation/people/ishaq-kamala-ibrahim
Iman Shaggag
London, UK/ Sharjah, UAE, October 2022
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