Amna Asghar’s gently captivating new paintings, on display at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery on the Lower East Side, explore a rich variety of experiences and perceptions associated with the geographical movement or cultural displacement. Such a shift could be a matter of orderly emigration, traumatic upheaval, or impulsive wanderlust. Whatever its nature, Asghar unabashedly explores much of it from a chair in front of a computer. Such is now life. While each piece stands nicely on its own as a visual hook, the paintings are best taken in collectively, to gain the full, rich context of her work.

The twelve pieces in the show range from sky paintings of uncomplicated beauty to intensely narrative canvases calling for study, triangulation, even research. In the first category are two dreamy acrylic paintings, Hamtramck and New York, based on photographs. The one is brooding pink and purple, the other slashing blue and white. A Pakistani-American born and based in Detroit, Asghar may be contrasting the downbeat sense of repose she feels there with the potential for kinetic renewal in New York. That’s just a guess, but one prompted by their co-installation. A third sky painting, Agra and Baghdad, is more abstract and presumably more remote from her actual experience, though its deep blue serenity carries some immediate irony. Read More