RUTHIE HENSHALL Life in the spotlight - Mayfair Times

20 21
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London-based contemporary artist Aisha Caan will be presenting her
work at the Albemarle Gallery next month, in her first public exhibition. “I’m
excited but nervous at the same time,” she says, as she guides me around
her bright and airy studio.
Blessed with brains and beauty, it’s easy to see what Mayfair-based
entrepreneur James Caan saw in her when they met more than 30 years
ago. Not only was her fashion label House of Aisha his first business
investment, he also ended up marrying her.
Born in Mumbai in 1959, Aisha has lived in London since 1967. She
studied at the London College of Fashion before setting up her own
company, but finding that her passion lay with fine art she decided to take
an MA at Central Saint Martins in 2008.
Aisha’s work is influenced by religion and science, which she believes
are intrinsically linked. She combines her love of painting with a curiosity
about the fundamentals of life – the natural elements and the essence of
existence – finding the answers she seeks in the Quran. “Two thirds of the
Quran is about Christianity and Judaism, and the other third is about the
Prophet Mohammad and about how God created this universe with
reference to science,” she says. “And this is what my work is about – the
disciplines of religion and science, which I express through art.”
Having studied Arabic and the history of Islam for over a decade, Aisha
fell in love with the elegance and flow of the Arabic script and tries to
convey the presence of God by using verses from the Quran or investing
her paintings with a certain luminosity. The result is a form of
spiritual/sacred art. “I’m very conscious about my work being respected
and revered,” she says. “For example, it shouldn’t be put on the floor, so
on the back of every painting there is a label that says, ‘This is a form of
sacred art – please treat it with reverence’.”
Despite its strong association with Islam, Aisha’s work has attracted a
clientele of all faiths and religions. “When I first got involved in this form of
sacred art, I honestly felt that as long as somebody was a believer in God
they would understand and respect my work, as God is universal,” she
says. She was surprised, then, when a man who said he was an atheist
enquired about buying her work at an early private viewing. “When he told
me he was an atheist, it threw me completely,” she says. “I asked him
what had drawn him to my work and he said he liked the mysticism of not
knowing the meaning of the Arabic script. He was viewing the dialogue
between the text and the overall composition of the work.”
Aisha’s forthcoming exhibition is titled Elements of Nature, and an
expanse of colour – determined by the different tonalities of the four
elements – stretches across every canvas. Each one is like a window onto
God’s creation, taking in vegetation, water, earth, mountains, day, night,
space – even the Big Bang. “I try to provoke thought and contemplation of
the sublime through a non-representational form,” she explains. “When I
was thinking about this exhibition, I was observing mankind and man’s
place on earth, and what came to mind was the fact that man always
Natural
selection
SHE DAZZLED ENTREPRENEUR JAMES CAAN
WITH HER HOUSE OF AISHA FASHION LABEL,
BECOMING HIS FIRST BUSINESS INVESTMENT
– AND HIS WIFE. NOW AISHA CAAN IS ABOUT
TO SHOW HER ARTISTIC SIDE TO THE
WORLD, WITH AN EXHIBITION AT MAYFAIR’S
ALBEMARLE GALLERY. SELMA DAY REPORTS
creates divisions for himself – of creed, colour, gender, power, wealth,
country, nationality – and I wanted to bring that into my art.” To express
these divisions, Aisha has also drawn inspiration from the architectural
structures and forms of the urban environment.
Not all the paintings in the series feature Arabic calligraphy. “Before I
went to Hajj [the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca], I thought every
painting of mine should have either the name of God or some sort of
Arabic verse from the Quran,” says Aisha. “But when I went to Mecca, I
was one of three million people there for one reason only – to worship
Allah. You couldn’t see Him, you couldn’t touch Him, you couldn’t hear
Him, but through His absence, you could sense His presence. So from
then on, my work became more abstract.”
One of the main pieces in the exhibition is an installation of the 99
names of God, each representing a particular characteristic (Judaism and
Christianity also have the same names for God). A lot of research goes into
each painting, and what Aisha tries to do is to share the knowledge she
has acquired with the world through art.
Elements of Nature is at the Albemarle Gallery, 49 Albemarle Street, from
April 1-30. Tel: 0207 499 1616.
BELOW: DIVISION OF
LIFE, 2009, OIL ON
CANVAS, AND (FAR
LEFT) DETAIL
LEFT: FRUITS &
FRUITS & FLOWERS,
2009, OIL ON CANVAS
RIGHT: AISHA CAAN