Work

Artist Statement

Mehreen Hashmi

Voices, chaos of thoughts in my mind, emotional warfare in my heart, and the mental travel between sanity and insanity, all get a visual depiction in my work. I make work to celebrate my resilience, explore my emotions, and visualize myself as an entire person. It all speaks to the audience in the end as self-portraits.  My work has evolved with time and ongoing healing while accepting the dysfunctionality of my mind and nerves. What is healing, though? Does it cure to the fullest, and I will lose my series of thoughts which has been my closest companion?  Although it’s more than chaotic thoughts. I am a person who is interrogating my unorthodox identity in an orthodox society. It narrates a paradigm between survival mode as an effect of the triggered stage and days earned after sanity with my resilience. I explore the metamorphosis of my emotions and vulnerability with the optimism of healing. Mentally, I live in a world that cannot be translated; it can be dreamed of or touched through visuals, and it serves as my catharsis. I have created my language to communicate with this prudent world; some understand it, and some judge it. My autobiographical work narrates it well for questioning the status quo for eccentrics. It also addresses social justice and creates a dialogue for various traumas and their healing. It is an intimate story told through symbols of self-portraits, figures, and flies depicted as ordeals. Sunflowers are a symbol of hope, healing, and resilience. It captures my moments between hope and despair of mental disorders and human connections with my surroundings. It narrates my relationship with mind, body, and soul in connection with society for my eccentricity. 

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Kite flying Project in Vlissingen, The Netherlands by Hans Overvliet, Ruimte Ceasuur –

In the 70th anniversary of the State of Israel, Overvliet asked twenty artists from home and abroad to create a work of art on a hexagonal sheet of Japanese paper that could be converted into a kite. The resulting kites were launched on the beach of Vlissingen on October 20, 2018. The artist wanted to recall the fact that in 2011, the Guinness record for the largest number of simultaneously launched kites was broken by children from the Gaza Strip: 12,350 kites stayed in the air for the required 30 seconds at a time.
My work was connected to the horrors of rape in relation with every warfare.

‘Who will attend my funeral? ‘ 2017 | Interactive installation | Text written on these post cards is collected from survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse.