Forever and ever I

The two-panel painting 'Forever and ever I' features in the left panel the outline of a seated woman taken from an earlier miniature painting which Nusra Latif Qureshi has overlaid with a fragmentary image of Ganesh, the Hindu deity associated with wisdom. Painted threads connect across to the right panel, where women’s arms reach out from behind a globe in detailed expressive hand gestures that echo gestures used in traditional painting. The hands and arms are caught up and wound around by the threads, but also deftly manage to turn the thread into meaningful forms such as the lotus flower. The globe shape both occludes the women but suggests a world dependent on their creative energy.