Towfiqur Rahman - Line-Form-Balance

Artist's Statement

My work is mainly concerned with human and animal figures—their visible forms, inner emotions, and their relationship with the natural world. I work in both drawing and sculpture, but the two media draw from the same source, the desire to look into familiar forms and discover the unknown in them. In my drawings, lines sometimes define human and animal forms and sometimes they combine a selection of parts together to create complex, hybrid forms. Faces, eyes, human and animal body parts appear to merge into one another. The forms are not always complete or even very clearly defined. I allow the line to move freely, following my thoughts and feelings as I draw. My sculptures develop from a similar process. They are done in welded steel. I use hard industrial materials and technology. But through cutting, bending and welding, I try to instill a sense of life and human presence in the hardness of steel. The forms that emerge may suggest a human face, an animal, or a combination of the two, or more unidentifiable abstract forms. Drawing and sculpture are closely connected for me. In drawing, I use the line to meander and search for a form. In sculpture, I use steel and welding to build a form in space. Both processes involve joining, transforming, and discovering. I am interested in the interrelation between the human and animal, reality and imagination, strength and vulnerability. I do not always want the final form to have a single clear meaning. I prefer to leave some space for the viewer to look, feel, and interpret. This exhibition brings together a selection of my drawings and sculptures from this continuing exploration—a journey from line to form, from form to sculpture, and from sculpture towards another possibility of existence.

-Towfiqur Rahman, Artist