Heavy Bend

About

This exhibition, titled Heavy Bend, will feature entirely new works by the artist, all produced in 2022 and during a time of compounded personal tumult. The result is a collection that excavates the psychic and spiritual maelstrom many have experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic and related crises.

The title of the exhibition references an acutely resonant experience for those who have endured the tribulations of the present moment, or any challenge. Heavy Bend marks how one must twist and contort under immense pressure but cannot afford to break under the strain. The works in this exhibition will be achingly familiar to any who have experienced seemingly insurmountable circumstances but whisper “I just have to make it through.” Crisis asks profound questions of us – what it means to be inter-connected, to be responsible for the lives of others, to find ways to survive exhaustion and depletion. These questions become particularly significant for women, who are called upon to sacrifice themselves to perform care for all others. The female figures in these paintings reference this uniquely gendered burden of care, asking what it means to have to continually draw from an emptying well to replenish others. Waheed’s paintings interrogate the personal conflict she experienced between an artistic self devoted to her creative practice and a relational self that bears the commitment to care for others, a conundrum all social beings experience in the tension between the self and the communal. These works offer an evocative visual language for exploring fiercely personal and timely questions, creating space for meditation and catharsis.