Mehwish Iqbal’s Mind, Body, State is an eclectic body of work that has evolved over a period of three years, in conjunction with her active engagement with women and children from refugee and migrant communities across Australia essentially influencing her art practice and thinking around the notion of home and belonging and mass migration globally. On a deep level the works also excavate her personal journey, childhood experiences, abstract layers of memory, dislocation, loss of family members and a constant shift of mind, body, state through alien landscapes.

In her work she subliminally portrays a parallel and symbiotic relationship of the fragile and complex state of human agency experiencing a makeshift and vernacular environment fueled by forced migration lending to the vulnerable, physiological, emotion and psychological state. The underlying concerns in her work also draw attention to the expulsion and acceptance of individuals based on their social, cultural and religious identity and the impact of restricted movement, border conflicts on the construction and deconstruction of society at large.

The creative process of works on cloth pattern paper incorporates several layers of print including silkscreen, collography and etching further exploited with a tactile pallet of embroidery, testing the strength of material and how much it can take. This is a highly unique and distinct visual vocabulary that she has evolved over a period of ten years and is remarkably laborious, meticulous and unparalleled. The mouth blown glass sculptures and exquisitely carved porcelain bodies further accentuate the diversity of media incorporated within her practice, posing a plethora of questions associated with susceptible wear and tear of human life, its endurance to survive in extremely harsh conditions and grow from those experience as transformed individuals.

“As an artist I am highly concerned with the position of women in society and treatment of children in detention centres. My work strongly advocates issues related to social justice and highlights the voices of minorities and marginalized communities.” —Mehwish Iqbal.