Hadieh Shafie debuts in Australia at Bendigo Art Gallery with SOUL fury

22 Aug 2021

A new exhibition of work by contemporary female artists from across the globe, SOUL fury rallies the interconnectedness of global contemporary art and the female lived experience to offer an expansive dialogue through the dynamism, beauty, vulnerability and utterances of feminist power in featured works.

Presented by Bendigo Art Gallery in collaboration with Nur Shkembi, independent curator and scholar of contemporary Islamic art, this premier exhibition brings together the work of leading Australian and international contemporary artists working across sculpture, photography, painting, installation, video and textiles. Gleaned from artists’ studios and major national collections, the work of sixteen artists with diverse artistic practices, social perspectives and cultural traditions is delicately threaded to reflect on the essential nature of female agency in the current social and political climate. 

In the work of Hadieh Shafie, primordial emotions of love and passion are folded into the spiritual to explore a more intense condition of love in the form of exultation and annihilation. Like many female artists from diaspora communities, Shafie’s identity is complex and it is nearly impossible to describe her as being one thing without the other.

Listen to the exhibition introduction by guest curator Nur Shkembi.

Artwork: Hadieh Shafie, Spike 29, 2021, paper, acrylic pigment, ink, 121 cm diameter (framed)