Inner Passages (Mon): Tasmina Khan Majles's introspection using art
As a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic raged outside one, multidisciplinary artist searched the Inner Passages of her heart and found the artist within
Beauty, sometimes, emerges from the darkest of places. For the 37-year-old Bangladeshi-Australian multidisciplinary artist Tasmina Khan Majles – it was the 262-day lockdown she faced in Melbourne in 2020.
Although it kept her from her usual life initially and the whole world was going through the crisis along with her, she used the silence to express the artist inside her.
Feeling a little low from minimal social interaction, when the Coronavirus pandemic was wreaking havoc throughout the world, she used art to retain her sanity. Tasmina, after long, freed the artist inside her that she had nestled since a child.
As Tasmina always journaled through art, she took up the pen and began drawing fine lines on paper during lockdown. These fine lines quickly took the shape of minimalist art. She named this "visual journaling."
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Soon, one after another, more drawings piled up in her art journals. Pen sketches titled 'Caged Bird', 'Self Nurturing', 'The Hollow Feeling', 'Confined By Own Thoughts', 'I Am Enough', etc, began filling her sketchbook.
The titles show how she hid behind art for her salvation.
Tasmina began her journey as an artist long ago but she did them for her own amusement. Pretty quickly, she began experimenting with other media. She took up ink and watercolour on paper, a daunting format for any new artist, and eventually moved it up a notch to bring together watercolour with charcoal.
The outcome of these quickly, but beautifully, painted artworks took the form of her first solo exhibition in Bangladesh, entitled 'Inner Passages (Mon)' at Dhaka Gallery in Banani, between 20 and 24 October.
"My exhibition delves into the labyrinths of everyday life experiences that I have been through during the pandemic," Tasmina began.
"Now that we're going to more public settings, my interaction with human minds, the multiplicity of human perceptions, has increased. Inner Passages (Mon) is a repository of emotions, experiences, memories and dreams; the collective conscious and unconscious stories woven into a language of art," she added.
A walk through the suave Dhaka Gallery hall, while browsing Tasmina's artwork, offered a journey of the inner workings of her philosophical mind. The fine pen strokes reveal faces, flowers, geometry and shapes.
"I wanted to channel my inner emotions on paper and art was my biggest saviour. It healed me," she said.
Her most recent works are greatly different to how she began. But the decision to jump from pen on paper to ink and watercolour was a spontaneous call.
"I actually flowed and navigated with this media, because it represents that fluidic beauty of our mind," Tasmina explained.
"Just like ink and watercolour, we don't have control over life. You have to let life take its space and create its own beauty."
Very fond of Japanese philosophy, she implemented the 'Chinmoku' philosophy in this body of work of hers. 'Chinmoku' means the Power of Silence.
The world had gone silent. She could hear her inner self more. In this series, birds are the centrepiece and used as a metaphor. Birds represent the freedom of soul and self-expression. "It was as if I'm expressing myself through birds," she added.
But if she always was an artist, why take art seriously this late in life?
"Painting is second nature to me. I've been a painter since childhood. But I pursued graphic design in my undergrad in 2007. Many years later, in 2019, I did a master's in Creative Arts in research. I'm a late bloomer, but professionally I started showcasing my work in 2019," she explained.
Now, she is not a latent artist anymore. Since 2019 to earlier this year, she has held about eight solo exhibitions, mostly in Australia, besides taking part in many other group exhibitions.
The paintings have a minimalist touch to them. The use of negative (white) space is extensive. The blankness sets a beautiful contrast to the sombre colours used. They are both abstract and figurative in nature.
"Chiharu Shiota's, Yayoi Kasuma's and some other Japanese culture's art inspire me. Their philosophies and artistic practices move me," Tasmina said enthusiastically.
"I take those inspirations and create my own way of expressing myself. That simplicity, that minimalism moves me. Less is always more," The artist concluded.
TBS Picks
A selection of artworks from the exhibition 'Inner Passages' with a description from the artist
Bleeding III | Ink and watercolour on paper
We all bleed but just like ink, we flow through, we don't stop. We can bleed from inside but that's alright, we need to move forward.
Floating Thoughts | Watercolour and charcoal on paper
We all have many floating thoughts in a day, but how many of them are our own? This artwork is all about the thoughts that we have all day, but a lot of them are not what we think for ourselves.
Outlier | Watercolour and charcoal on paper
This is a personal favourite of mine. The idea is, when we're in a circle of people, we converse. But even then, sometimes I feel I'm in that circle and sometimes I don't feel like I'm there, even though I am there. I used a bold colour, red, to represent the outlier. This is also inspired by Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers.
Multi-faceted Beings | Watercolour and charcoal on paper
It took me a lot of time to detail those intricate lines in ink and build up those layers. Basically we're all layered beings, and as you try to know someone, you also get to discover yourself in the process. You peel each layer to get into the core and you learn yourself too. But in that process, you also feel like an outlier sometimes.
