Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1355320
NORTHSHOREMAG.COM 42 APRIL 2021 Three years ago, artist Zarah Hussain couldn't breathe. "I was coughing, I was having trouble walking uphill, and I just wasn't getting enough air into my lungs," she says in a Q&A with the Peabody Essex Museum. It turned out to be an issue with her diaphragm, and after corrective surgery, she had to learn how to breathe again. During her healing process, she began painting—visually conveying how her lungs felt as they relearned a basic function that DEEP BREATH PHOTOGRAPH BY KATHY TARANTOLA Artist Zarah Hussain expresses breathing in her exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum. BY NATALIE GALE most of us take for granted. That was, until about a year ago. A year ago, COVID-19 swept the world. And Hussain brought out her old paintings about learning how to breathe as another tragedy came center stage—the killing of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police. Some of George Floyd's last words were "I can't breathe." The response to the U.K. artist's painting series on breathing was overwhelmingly positive. "People were contacting me from The new PEM exhibit is a painting series on breathing. the States, from Europe, from India, all over the world," says Hussain. "It kind of touched a nerve." Compiled into a new exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum, Hussain's paintings are accompanied by an animation and a soundscape in Breath, on view through June 20, 2021. Hussain, daughter of immigrants to the U.K., takes most of her artistic inspiration from geometry. "[We had] pictures of mosques, we had carpets, we had a few things from India and Pakistan," Hussain says of growing up, "and I loved the geometry and repeating patterns." "Hussain's work lies at the intersection of science and spirituality and melds ancient traditions of meditation and breathwork with contemporary technology," says Siddhartha V. Shah, PEM's director of education and civic engagement and curator of South Asian Art. L I V E + P L AY