Alya Hatta: Some Seeds Are Still Bitter
March 22nd – April 20th 2024
SETAREH Berlin
Schöneberger Ufer 71
Berlin
SETAREH is proud to present the German debut of London based artist Alya Hatta’s Some Seeds Are Still Bitter. In her paintings, playful uncanny scenes weave together islands of anecdotes and memories. Both a means for locating herself in the present and a path for returning home, Hatta’s art moves through various temporalities. These diaristic images serve as a reflection of the self in times of loss and change, growth and dispersal.
Image courtesy of the artist and SETAREH
In this recent body of work, Hatta surveys lived experience of diaspora, with her Southeast Asian heritage conflated with Eastern and Western influences. Concerned with ecology, both environmental and communal, Hatta engages modes of journeying, discovering and crafting to imagine a materialized paradise which she can call her own. The gathering of materials and textiles are the scaffolding that lays the base for this world to be built upon. The pattern motifs and swatches of textured textiles that bleed into Hatta’s paintings are grown through exchange with her immediate community.
Central in the exhibition exists a sculpture; a hybridised palm tree whose trunk is formed of recycled batik, and whose leaves are block printed from ones existing in Kuala Lumpur and in London. This sculpture not only anchors the exhibition physically but also metaphorically, representing the roots and branches of a community and heritage intertwining to create something new and vibrant. Strings of seeping pearls, tangled beads and chains are collected from the community around her – Bob’s Bikes, Honey Gold Fabrics and Aunty Amy Woh’s off-cuts, all quintessential South East London boutiques.
Her’s are collages of life that bypass time, space and generational experiences to form their own spaces which culminate into her sense of self. Little to no importance is placed on differentiating between the forms of painting, drawing and sculpture which emerge from this searching, but rather the artist is focused on the action of making and assembling itself, using materiality to form a language that speaks for the self as an individual as well as a collective identity.
Alya Hatta: Some Seeds Are Still Bitter opens on March 22nd until April 20th 2024 SETAREH Berlin
©2024 SETAREH
Art Plugged is a contemporary platform inspired by a relationship with the broader arts communities. We provide our audience with curated insight into the world of art, from exhibitions to artist interviews and more.
