{"id":621522,"date":"2026-10-05T18:26:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T18:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/621522\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T18:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T18:26:13","slug":"rana-begum-sees-what-you-dont","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/621522\/","title":{"rendered":"Rana Begum Sees What You Don\u2019t"},"content":{"rendered":"

Profile<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cArt became a tool to communicate, at first,\u201d she told Hyperallergic. “Then it became an obsession.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n \"Aruna
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

\"Rana
\n Rana Begum with her works at Lehmann Maupin (all photos Aruna D’Souza\/Hyperallergic)<\/p>\n

The London-based artist Rana Begum\u2019s show at Lehmann Maupin<\/a> \u2014 her first solo show in New York \u2014 is a perceptual mindfuck, in the best possible way. Across 18 works drawn from different series that thread through the artist\u2019s career, we see her using simple, industrial materials \u2014 glass, automotive parts, chain link, metal \u2014 to create complex, phenomenological, and even paradoxical experiences of color and light.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are three core elements in my work: light, form, and color,\u201d Begum told me during a walk-through of her show a few days before it opened. \u201cThose three things coexist in each work. There\u2019s a different kind of balance for each series. One will be more about light and the next will be more about form, and so on. But either way, the three coexist in the work, and you can\u2019t take any one away.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Rana Begum, “No. 1628” (2026), paint on powder-coated aluminum (20 sections)<\/p>\n

One of the first works in the show, \u201cNo. 1628\u201d (2026), is composed of a series of powder-coated aluminum bars mounted to the wall; the sides of each bar are painted a vivid, almost neon, yellow and pink, respectively. But the precise distance of the bars from one another creates strange optical effects as you walk around the piece, so that other phantom hues and even geometric patterns emerge \u2014 it\u2019s like a lenticular photograph, but one that depends only on color and light, not imagery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think all my work has a sense of time as well,\u201d Begum added. \u201cYou have to observe, see how the work shifts and changes through the day.\u201d This quality was perceptible even over the course of my hour-long visit to the gallery \u2014 the piece, installed near a window, seemed preternaturally responsive to small changes in the position of the sun.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis series, which I started around 2007, is an anchor for me,\u201d she added. \u201cJust mentally, it\u2019s crazy that this is happening in your eye and brain, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

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