Hovering over the clouds of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border are these vicious unmanned aerial vehicles that are there to target the terrorists. Mahwish Chishty presents her series of paintings using silhouettes of drones juxtaposed with vibrant folk art imagery, combining politics and cultures that have shaped her experience.
Hovering over the clouds of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border are these vicious unmanned aerial vehicles that are there to target the terrorists. Peter W. Singer, the director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution, says the drones are designed for jobs that humans can't or won’t do. For some, the use of Drones is a fundamental ethical and legal problem. I’ve created a series of subjective paintings using silhouettes of Drones and juxtaposing vibrant cultural imagery to facilitate acculturation. By doing that, I’m opening a dialogue.
My current work comes out of a fascination with ‘Truck art’ (Also commonly known as ‘Jingle truck’) and recent political incidents happening in my hometown, Pakistan. As a result, these paintings are eerie and folk and at the same time come out of concerns that are shaping our times. We are all repositories of our time and place and I think the work cannot help but reveal the politics and cultures that have shaped me.
