Alms and Portents

Kushana Bush’s painting ‘Alms and Portents’ 2018 is inspired by a Mughal miniature painting of the fourteenth-century Persian story ‘Tutinama’ (‘Tales of a Parrot’). The story centres on the fidelity of a woman left at home, while her husband is travelling. Two birds – a myna and a parrot – are charged with guarding the woman’s honour. In the tale, the myna advises against an illicit affair and is strangled, while the parrot distracts the woman with fantastic stories through the 52 nights of the husband’s absence.

Inspired by the power of storytelling – together with the image of the strangled bird as a metaphor for a guilty conscience – Bush invites her audience into a world of fantasy and intrigue.

‘In my painting, the bird is suffocated by a thoroughly modern yellow rubber glove on a little golden altar. The lid of a jar is released (do ghosts escape?). A woman rests on a theatre mask and, without realising, a stray hand lifts her gown to reveal she wears no undergarment. Another figure takes a look at himself in a mirror, without taking off a little false beard. Who does he see in his reflection?’

Bush’s intricately detailed paintings borrow from different times and realities, and depict a range of human interactions and behaviours, from acts of devotion and torture to erotic couplings. Offering a somewhat dystopian view of human relations, Bush addresses universal themes – love and hate, revenge and salvation, devotion and rejection, good and evil – that resonate across cultures, geography and time. She draws on disparate influences, including Indian miniature painting, Japanese ‘ukiyo-e’ prints, the rich world of European medieval manuscript painting and events from modern life, and her combinations of seemingly unrelated motifs – from urns and brooms to Slazenger logos – connect different historical periods, behaviours and cultures. Intimate in scale, but dramatic in content, Bush’s painstakingly created compositions foreground the artist’s devotion to illuminating human behaviour.

Exhibited in 'The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art' (APT9) | 24 Nov 2018 – 28 Apr 2019