The Allen Center in West Newton is currently showcasing photographer Tira Khan’s Interiors: Between Refuge and Restraint, an exhibition seeking to demonstrate the dynamic combinations of digital and tactile beauty.
Interiors: Between Refuge and Restraint is the second exhibit in the “Women Seeing Women” series, curated by Peter Vanderwarker, a Newton Cultural Alliance Board member.
Khan uses various elements such as physical materials, different prints and patterns, and methods of processing photographs to create thought-provoking pieces.
“I experimented with the materiality of printmaking and delved into museum archives as well as my own,” Khan said. “I perused historic patterns and illustrations. If I couldn’t leave the house, at least my mind could wander. So I see tension in these collages, and I wonder sometimes if these young women are seeking refuge in the patterns, or they’re desperately trying to get out, and some may feel some way, some another.”
Exhibit attendee Joyce Richmond was drawn back to the Allen Center for the artist talk after visiting on the exhibition’s opening night.
“I’ve never seen art like this, where the more you look at the picture, and actually move a distance, the more you see,” Richmond said. “Even having seen these before, I think I’m seeing more detail now.”
Khan was inspired to create her collection by various factors, including her interpretation of society following the 2016 presidential election of Donald Trump and her daughters leaving home, which left her feeling out of place.
“My own life was at a crossroads,” Khan said.
In an art class she was taking at the time, she came across a piece of wallpaper that reminded her of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” a short story she had read in college, Khan explained.
Written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the story describes a woman’s descent into madness. The narrator becomes obsessed with the wallpaper’s pattern, eventually believing she sees a woman trapped behind it.
Khan explained that between COVID-19, quarantine, and the unfolding political climate’s misogyny and chaos, the short story felt relevant and continued to influence her artistry.
“It gave me a new appreciation of interiors, both domestic and psychological,” Khan said. “But, I watched the paradigm of normalcy give way to disease, left and right leaning populism, and perhaps the most alarming, the subversion of truth.”
One of the most influential inspirations of Khan’s work was the departure of her children from her home.
“They entered a world of greater opportunity for women, yet many more constraints,” Khan said.
Kahn uses many methods and types of photographs to achieve her finished product, and she makes countless edits during her process, such as silk-screening, photogravure, changes to the overlays, and UV lighting.
“Wallpaper is decorative, atmospheric, and it’s paper thin,” Kahn said. “Construction belies the power to consume. What is in the images may feel suffocating, yet the techniques I use to create them with are anything but.”
Ken Krems, treasurer for the Newton Cultural Alliance, shared that the gallery has drawn great reactions from the community
“All the reactions that I’ve heard have been fantastic—that it’s just beautiful,” Krems said. “It’s as good as going to a fancy art gallery, but that’s right here in Newton.”
Krems believes the exhibition has served as encouragement for opening discussion surrounding topics that may otherwise be difficult to discuss in the current political climate.
“I think it’s great because it’s something that should be talked about,” Krems said. “And just because there’s somebody in Washington who’s unhinged doesn’t mean we can’t talk about things that we should talk about.”
Khan’s exhibition will remain in the Allen Center’s gallery through March 4.
Leave a Reply