Ayesha Sultana’s practice encompasses drawing, painting, object and sound. The work relies heavily on process as an attempt to translate notions of space, which is inseparably connected with perceptions of time as a way of looking. The artist was born in 1984 in Jessore, Bangladesh. Her drawing series often acts as an enquiry, through the building of spatial structures by tapping in repetition, variation and rhythm. It may appear dissimilar in technique but is essentially one and the same, permeating similar areas of transformation. For the past two years, drawing has often acted as a formal backbone to her practice. She uses it as a verb, of ‘doing’ whether it be cutting, folding, stitching, layering, recording, and tracing. This doing even extends to explorations with photocopy machines, allowing them to alter and distort other works that she experiments with. The illustrated image, Cataract II, 2011, is part of the artist’s ongoing series of drawing with staples, piecing rice paper and creating new patterns and structures that highlight the tension between the strength of the industrial staple and the vulnerability of the translucent organic paper.

Sultana studied under Rashid Rana at Beaconhouse National University in Lahore, and later lectured there for two years. Sultana’s work has been exhibited extensively in India, Italy, the Netherlands, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates. She is an active member of the Britto Arts Trust and recently completed a residency at Gasworks, in London.