Cuturi Gallery is proud to present Black Eye, the highly anticipated solo exhibition by Aisha Rosli (b. 1997, Singapore). In this ongoing series of works, Rosli conveys and gives form to the complex and weighted sense of being, laying bare an intimate lens into her exploration of the human condition and experience. 

Referencing 20^th century painters Francis Bacon and Egon Schiele, as well as contemporaries such as Marlene Dumas, Rosli works within the tradition of figurative painting, driven by a mode of interrogation affixed to our bodily presence. Exploring themes of solitude, concealment, proximity and desire, she presents figures inhabiting constructed scenes and situations that pander towards the uncanny. Rosli is known for incorporating recognisable stylised patterns such as stripes, gingham and lattice into her paintings, of which they become an important device for her to anchor the uncanny in and around her characters. To this end, Rosli’s figurative manifestations dwell in obscure environments that appear curiously familiar, yielding a certain enigmatic quality to unpacking her psychologically charged works. 

In Black Eye, Rosli touches on the aftermath of ambiguous situations implicated in the appearance of a black eye, relating to multiple scenarios insinuating states of abuse, distress, anxiety, insomnia. Appearing solitary and detached, the figures emanate a sense of numbness that is both self-contained, yet emanative through to the deceptively recognisable chambers they are confined in. Together, Black Eye hinges on a shared vulnerability that takes the complex field of human emotions as a point of departure into unravelling and relating to the disposition of Rosli’s characters, and vice versa.