Mequitta Ahuja
Mequitta Ahuja, Primary Love, 2020, Oil on canvas, 72 x 84 in
Mequitta Ahuja, Portrait of Her Mother, 2020, Oil on canvas, 72 x 84 in
Mequitta Ahuja, Generator, 2020, Oil on canvas, 84 x 72 in
Mequitta Ahuja, Regenerate, 2020, Oil on canvas, 84 x 80 in
Mequitta Ahuja, Scan, 2020, Oil on canvas, 84 x 80 in
Mequitta Ahuja, Term II, 2020, Oil on polyester drafting film, 28.5 x 21.5 in
Mequitta Ahuja, Merge, 2020, Oil on polyester drafting film, 33 x 33 in
Mequitta Ahuja, Emerge, 2020, Oil on polyester drafting film, 33 x 33 in
Mequitta Ahuja, Trial II, 2020, Oil on polyester drafting film, 36 x 36 in
Mequitta Ahuja, Bound, 2020, Oil on polyester drafting film, 31 x 24 in
Mequitta Ahuja, Bundle, 2020, Oil on polyester drafting film, 31 x 24 in
Mequitta Ahuja, Carry, 2020, Oil on polyester drafting film, 31 x 24 in
Mequitta Ahuja, Relinquish II, Oil on polyester drafting film, 24 x 18 in
Mequitta Ahuja, Friction, 2020, Oil on polyester drafting film, 31 x 24 in
Mequitta Ahuja, Locus, 2020, Oil on polyester drafting film, 31 x 24 in
Mequitta Ahuja, Zone, 2020, Oil on polyester drafting film, 31 x 24 in
Mequitta Ahuja, Set, 2020, Oil on polyester drafting film, 29 x 21.5 in
Mequitta Ahuja, Suture, 2020, Oil on polyester drafting film, 29 x 21.5 in
Mequitta Ahuja, Term, 2020, Oil on polyester drafting film, 29 x 21.5 in
Mequitta Ahuja, Rebound, 2020, Oil on polyester drafting film, 36 x 24 in
Mequitta Ahuja, Keep, 2020, Oil on polyester drafting film, 29 x 21.5 in
Mequitta Ahuja, Acre, 2020, Oil on polyester drafting film, 24 x 36 in
Mequitta Ahuja, Momentum, 2020, Oil on polyester drafting film, 20 x 36 in
Mequitta Ahuja, Hinge, 2020, Oil on polyester drafting film, 20 x 36 in
We are delighted to present Ma, Aicon Art’s debut solo exhibition of US-based figurative painter Mequitta Ahuja.
Ahuja writes ‘I make paintings by scraping away paint, figuring something new out of loss. What’s left behind, that’s the painting.’ Comprised of twenty oil sketches and five large paintings, this exhibition brings together a timely and deeply personal body of work all made within the past fifteen months–the final months and days of her mother Sonja Ahuja’s life. Ahuja uses drawing to mourn. Giving material embodiment to her experience of urgency and loss, the artist devised her new, subtractive process of applying layers of paint to the surface and quickly pushing and scraping paint away to reveal bodies, entangled and often in embrace. As source material, the artist revisited a series of photographic studies she made as an art student of herself and her mother in which the two women, both naked, push and pull each other. Using her signature strategy of auto-referential figuration, the artist expanded her representational system to include the image and body of her mother Sonja.
Installation photography by Sebastian Bach
“Ma”, the artist’s new exhibition at New York’s Aicon Gallery, includes 20 oil sketches and five large oil paintings. The works may be the artist’s most intimately personal yet—made over the past 15 months, during the final period of her mother Sonja’s life, the works are a form of grieving. Loss, healing, gratitude, and connection exist as interconnected and equal energies.
