Interior Courtyard I

Commemoration is the main focus of this large drawing, Interior Courtyard I, in which an ornamental courtyard pavilion of scalloped arches is rendered in a dynamic perspectival architectural composition, with a cenotaph at its center. The artist notes that for her, the courtyard space constitutes “an archetypal threshold,” which she deploys “to merge the discourse of the private and the public.” She further states:Large-scale perspective drawing and digital constructions combine courtyard spaces with reductive geometric forms. I conceive of my drawings as theatre, where the elements are in a state of constant transformation and re-assembly. Ranging from cenotaphs and monuments to basic architectural forms, these elements are recycled and re-situated from one drawing, print or sculpture to the next. This theatre of movement and flux is a zero gravity zone where objects are free to roam, shatter, disintegrate, and transform. Set within turbulent ornamental flames and vapors, lotus forms, angular planes, cubic shapes, and crossed geometric forms animate Interior Courtyard I. Shah offers this commemorative dynamic of stable and timeless forms riled by turbulence to evoke the psychic costs of partition on historical memory.