Lubna Agha: Points of Reference

Table of Contents:
Illustrations
Foreword
Early Career (1963-1971)
The White Paintings (1971-1981)
First Phase in USA-Return to Figuration (1981-1996)
Second Phase in USA-Re-examining Islamic and Regional Art History (1995-2000)
Third Phase in USA-Infinity and Oneness (2004-2012)
Conclusion
Resume
Abstract:
Lubna Agha was an accomplished realist when she graduated from the Karachi School of Art and pioneered the art of abstraction and non-figuration in Pakistan. As a young artist she broke taboos and opened the field for her contemporaries. Her Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad exhibitions sold out at a time when collectors were few and very selective. Lubna's White Series energized journalists who speculated wildly on the meaning of her illusive imagery. At the height of her career in Pakistan, Lubna, her husband and 2 young children moved to Sacramento, California. She returned to figuration to express her alienation from home and family. Provocative drawings and watercolors limited by the size of her small apartment kitchen evolved into a new genre of political satire. The Ja Namaaz series poked fun at Pakistan for falling prey to American influence.

After visits to Morocco and Turkey in 2004-5, Lubna turned to geometric designs and large canvases inspired by the architecture she saw and photographed there. Her colorful, obsessive patterns on rehels, minaret, crenelated window and pen box forms recall the repetition of tile makers and wood carvers from the distant past. Lubna is firmly situated among the stalwarts of the Pakistan and Pakistan-American art community.

Lubna Agha, Far From Home, c. 1984
Lubna Agha, Far From Home, c. 1984

Agha, Rehel III, 2006