Patterns Of Sensation - The Bodies Of Dolls by Salma Caller
Visual Arts
Visual Poetry
<p><span>This series of works on paper by artist Salma Ahmad Caller, explores the notion of the female body as an idea that is constructed, made like a folk doll’s body, from materials both real and imagined. The folk doll or fashion model is patterned and marked by how a society thinks about femininity. Each material used to make ‘her’ carries it’s own set of cultural notions, sensations and associations. ‘She’ is often ornamented with patterned textiles, jewels, silk, velvet, embroidery, pearls, shells, tassels, bells, or associated with flowers, fruits and fertility, or with lace, nets, knots and webs, creating textures that carve ‘her’ body into zones of social and sexual importance.</span></p>
<p><span>Forces of cultural and social expectations mark and carve our bodies but also the things we touch and feel are etched onto us, mapping zones and patterns of our experiences, our traumas and losses, our sensuality and feeling.</span><br /><span>Bringing the biological and the ornamental together to subvert the usual imagery of the female body, Salma uses decorative and ornamental forms, arabesques, whiplash and sinuous lines, and curvilinear shapes in her work, as a language of the biological sensational body, to try and capture the body we feel not the body we think we see.</span></p>
<strong><br /><br />Salma Ahmad Caller</strong> is an artist and a hybrid of cultures and faiths. She is drawn to hybrid and ornamental forms, and to how the body expresses itself in the mind to create an embodied ‘image’. UK based, she was born in Iraq to an Egyptian father and a British mother and grew up in Nigeria and Saudi Arabia. With a background in art history and theory, medicine and pharmacology, and several years teaching cross-cultural ways of seeing via non-Western artefacts at Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, she now works as an independent artist and teacher.<br /><br /><strong>Online URL</strong>: <a href="https://poethead.wordpress.com/2017/07/20/patterns-of-sensation-the-bodies-of-dolls-by-salma-caller/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://poethead.wordpress.com/2017/07/20/patterns-of-sensation-the-bodies-of-dolls-by-salma-caller/</a>
Salma Ahmad Caller
Salma Ahmad Caller website <br /><br /><strong>Online URL</strong>: <a href="https://www.salmaahmadcaller.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.salmaahmadcaller.com/ </a><br /><br />Patterns Of Sensation - The Bodies Of Dolls (Poethead 2008 - 2021)<br /><br /><strong>Online URL</strong>: <em><a href="https://poethead.wordpress.com/2017/07/20/patterns-of-sensation-the-bodies-of-dolls-by-salma-caller/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://poethead.wordpress.com/2016/11/30/the-infinite-body-of-sensation-visual-poetry-by-salma-caller/</a></em>
Chris Murray - WordPress
2017 -
Salma Ahmad Caller
© Salma Ahmad Caller
Poethead 2008 -2021
Digital Image, Online Publication, Web, Photography, Collage, Paper
Visual, Textual
Visual Arts, Image, Poetry, Poetics
Web Resource
Global
The Infinite Body of Sensation - By Salma Caller
Visual Arts
Visual Poetry
<strong>Salma Ahmad Caller</strong><span><strong> </strong>is an artist and a hybrid of cultures and faiths. She is drawn to hybrid and ornamental forms, and to how the body expresses itself in the mind to create an embodied ‘image’. UK based, she was born in Iraq to an Egyptian father and a British mother and grew up in Nigeria and Saudi Arabia. With a background in art history and theory, medicine and pharmacology, and several years teaching cross-cultural ways of seeing via non-Western artefacts at Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, she now works as an independent artist and teacher.<br /><br />The titles are all - Detail from <strong>Infinite Bodies</strong> series - graphite, Indian Ink, watercolour, collage and gold pigment on paper - 59.4cm x 84.1cm<br /><br /></span><strong>Online URL</strong>: <a href="https://poethead.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/salmacallerartistsstatement.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Artist's Statement <strong>PDF</strong></a><br /><br /><table><tbody><tr><th>
<h2><span><strong>Nets entangling objects</strong></span></h2>
<p><span>Bones of birds</span><br /><span>The insides of shells</span></p>
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<table><tbody><tr><th><span><a href="https://poethead.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/infinitebody-04-1.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-large wp-image-71270" src="https://poethead.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/infinitebody-04-1.jpg?w=720&h=960" alt="infinitebody-04-1" /></a></span></th>
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Salma Caller
Salma Ahmad Caller website <br /><br /><strong>Online URL</strong>: <a href="https://www.salmaahmadcaller.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.salmaahmadcaller.com/ </a><br /><br />The Infinite Body of Sensation (Poethead 2008 - 2021)<br /><br /><strong>Online URL</strong>: <em><a href="https://poethead.wordpress.com/2016/11/30/the-infinite-body-of-sensation-visual-poetry-by-salma-caller/#:~:text=%20%E2%80%9CThe%20Infinite%20Body%20of%20Sensation%E2%80%9D%3A%20Visual%20poetry,a%20hybrid%20of%20cultures%20and%20faiths.%20More%20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://poethead.wordpress.com/2016/11/30/the-infinite-body-of-sensation-visual-poetry-by-salma-caller/</a></em>
WordPress, Chris Murray
2016 -
Salma Ahmad Caller
© Salma Ahmad Caller
Poethead 2008-2021
Digital Image, Online Publication, Web
Detail from Infinite Bodies series - graphite, Indian Ink, watercolour, collage and gold pigment on paper - 59.4cm x 84.1cm
Visual, Textual
Visual Arts, Imagery, Poetry, Poetics
Web Resource
Global
The Beautiful Mars Project at HiRISE: High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, NASA).
Visual, Imaging, HiRISE, NASA, MarsPoetica Beautiful Mars at <a href="https://beautifulmars.tumblr.com/">HiRISE</a>, High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, NASA).
<a href="https://www.uahirise.org/epo/about/">About</a> the Project<br /><a href="https://beautifulmars.tumblr.com/">Tumblr</a><br /><a href="https://beautifulmars.tumblr.com/post/141870237092/a-sea-snail-most-precious-egg-as-if-it-had">Delicate</a> at HiRISE<br />Link to the image accompanying "<em>Delicate</em>" at HiRISE <a href="https://poethead.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/tumblr_o4ruyvivrt1rlz4gso1_12802.jpg?w=840&h=560&crop=1">https://poethead.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/tumblr_o4ruyvivrt1rlz4gso1_12802.jpg?w=840&h=560&crop=1</a><br /><br />An Excerpt from "<em>Delicate</em>" at MarsPoetica (HiRISE), Single Poems (<a href="https://poethead.wordpress.com/2016/03/29/an-excerpt-from-delicate-at-marspoetica-hirise/">Poethead</a>), <strong>Online URL</strong>: <a href="https://poethead.wordpress.com/2016/03/29/an-excerpt-from-delicate-at-marspoetica-hirise/">https://poethead.wordpress.com/2016/03/29/an-excerpt-from-delicate-at-marspoetica-hirise/</a>
HiRISE, <strong>Online URL:</strong> <a href="https://beautifulmars.tumblr.com/post/141870237092/a-sea-snail-most-precious-egg-as-if-it-had">https://beautifulmars.tumblr.com/post/141870237092/a-sea-snail-most-precious-egg-as-if-it-had</a>
HiRISE, NASA , Poethead, WordPress
High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, NASA)
2016-2021
Chris Murray
Copyrights belong to HiRISE
<a href="https://beautifulmars.tumblr.com/">Beautiful Mars</a>
Web Resource
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Web, Digital, Photographic,
Web Resource
Global
"Making Den Of Sibyl Wren" - by Salma Ahmad Caller
<p><span>A photo-essay detailing the creation of an artwork "Den Of Sibyl Wren (2018) for the book "A Hierarchy of Halls" (Published Smithereens Press, 2018)<br /><br /></span></p>
<div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"><strong>The Den of Sibyl Wren</strong> is my response to Chris Murray's <strong>A Hierarchy of Halls</strong> published by <span style="text-decoration:underline;"><em><span style="color:#f2973d;text-decoration:underline;">Smithereens Press</span></em></span> It is my response to words Chris wrote about how she feels about this poem, and what she sees in her mind’s eye.</span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"> </span><br /><span style="color:#000000;"> Details of the image '<strong>Den of Sibyl Wren'</strong> by <em><span style="color:#003366;"><span style="color:#f2973d;"><a style="color:#f2973d;" href="https://www.salmaahmadcaller.com/">Salma Ahmad Caller</a></span> </span></em></span></div>
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<div align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"><span style="color:#000000;"><em><strong>Materials</strong>: Watercolour, Indian ink, collage, graphite and gold pigment on Fabriano acid-free paper 57cm x 76.3cm<br /><br /><b>Notes on the process of creating the art work for 'A Hierarchy of Halls' (Smithereens Press, 2018)</b><br /></em></span></span>
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<p align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">My process involves intense working back and forth with words and images in my imagination. I write a lot as part of my creative process as an artist, and these writings help me create and develop visual images. The so-called ‘visual’ image is to me embodied, materialised, haptic and tactile. So the ‘image’ in poetry and metaphorical writing is almost the same as the visual image in art, to me. So there is not a huge gap between text and image. Not in my mind in any case. The flat 2 D image is neither flat nor 2 D – but rather it is a complex and multi-dimensional terrain of emotion, sensation and concept, just as is the written word, especially in poetry.</span></p>
<p style="text-align:left;" align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;"><em>So it felt very natural to respond to Chris Murray’s very imagistic poetry, which I already love so much.</em></span></p>
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<p align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">In preparing to make work in response to <strong>A Hierarchy of Halls,</strong> I spent time reading and re-reading the poems and reading and re-reading Chris’s little notes she had sent to me via Twitter. And so the The <strong>Den of Sibyl Wren</strong> emerged. My notes on my own thoughts and responses to reading <strong>A Hierarchy of Halls</strong> and to what Chris told me about her notion of a Sibyl that represented the wren and its qualities:</span></p>
<ul><li><span style="color:#000000;">The smallness and greatness of Sibyl Wren, her green den of spaces that we cannot see and her flight paths carved out in the sky. Tiny but potent and majestic in her domain.</span></li>
<li><span style="color:#000000;">A shamanistic female bird being interpreting or bringing the mysteries of the other worldly to us.</span></li>
<li><span style="color:#000000;">A materialisation of the invisible.</span></li>
<li><span style="color:#000000;">A feminine nature of delicacy, strength and bravery. A guardian.</span></li>
<li><span style="color:#000000;">An oracle seeing into the unknown and leading the reader bravely forwards through pain and difficulty.</span></li>
<li><span style="color:#000000;">A garden world of tiny potent things.</span></li>
<li><span style="color:#000000;">A sky above that is carved into great structures and pathways by nature that we cannot see.</span></li>
<li><span style="color:#000000;">A fecundity and joyfulness. Spring, summer.</span></li>
<li><span style="color:#000000;">A soaring upwards towards mystery.</span></li>
<li><span style="color:#000000;">Invisibility of worlds around us and within us.</span></li>
<li><span style="color:#000000;">The dandelion clock telling of another time besides the time we know.</span></li>
<li><span style="color:#000000;">A bird shrine under a shadowy tree to the dead bird in Chris’s poem.</span></li>
<li><span style="color:#000000;">A tiny female presence sitting and moving in an underworld of unseen unspoken spaces.</span></li>
</ul><br /><h3 style="text-align:center;" align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">Twitter Notes</span></h3>
<p align="justify"><span style="color:#000000;">What <strong>Chris Murray</strong> said in a series of little Twitter notes to me: <em>“The chapbook is called 'a hierarchy of halls' and is about small things, flight, wrens, and huge dreamlike structures are implied. My sibyls and messengers are birdlike creatures/ the little chapbook is called 'a hierarchy of halls' and is about a wren's flight through my garden, am obsessed with bird workings. I didn't see a sibyl specifically in bodies, but the first image on the Poethead page has a little putti. This is how my head works: I see the wren as a type of sibyl, a small messenger, and female. The sibyl should represent the wren! A type of oracle who leads one into the book.</em></span></p>
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<table><tbody><tr><td><span style="color:#000000;"><img class="alignleft size-large wp-image-72779" src="https://poethead.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/image3.jpeg?w=740" alt="" width="740" height="992" /></span></td>
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<table><tbody><tr><td><span style="color:#000000;"><img class="alignleft size-large wp-image-72778" src="https://poethead.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/image2.jpeg?w=740" alt="" width="740" height="992" /></span></td>
</tr></tbody></table><hr /><table><tbody><tr><td><span style="color:#000000;"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-77937" src="https://poethead.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/artwork-a-hierarchy-of-halls-srgb-3590x5000px-1-7.jpg" alt="artwork-a-hierarchy-of-halls-srgb-3590x5000px-1 (7)" width="680" height="947" /></span></td>
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<p style="text-align:center;"><span style="color:#000000;">All images & images associated with <strong>'Den of Sibyl wren',</strong> <strong>'A Hierarchy of Halls', </strong>and <strong>'Gold Friend'</strong> are <span style="color:#000080;"><strong>©</strong> </span><strong>Salma Ahmad Caller</strong></span></p>
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Salma Ahmad Caller is an artist and a hybrid of cultures and faiths. She is drawn to hybrid and ornamental forms, and to how the body expresses itself in the mind to create an embodied ‘image’. UK-based, she was born in Iraq to an Egyptian father and a British mother and grew up in Nigeria and Saudi Arabia. With a background in art history and theory, medicine and pharmacology, and several years teaching cross-cultural ways of seeing via non-Western artefacts at Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, she now works as an independent artist and teacher.
A photo-essay detailing the creation of an artwork "Den Of Sibyl Wren (2018) for the book "A Hierarchy of Halls" (Published Smithereens Press, 2018)
Salma Ahmad Caller
<a href="https://www.salmaahmadcaller.com/">Website</a> of Salma Ahmad Caller<br /><br />Making Den Of Sibyl Wren Photo-Essay, Published Poethead 26/01/2018<br /><br />Online URL: <em><a href="https://poethead.wordpress.com/2018/01/26/making-den-of-sibyl-wren-by-salma-ahmad-caller/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://poethead.wordpress.com/2018/01/26/making-den-of-sibyl-wren-by-salma-ahmad-caller/</a></em>
WordPress
2018-2020
Salma Ahmad Caller
All images & images associated with 'Den of Sibyl wren', 'A Hierarchy of Halls', and 'Gold Friend' are © Salma Ahmad Caller
<a href="https://archive.org/details/sp23ahierarchyofhalls">"A Hierarchy of Halls"</a> Published by Smithereens Press, 2018 Internet Archive
Visual arts, Materials: Watercolour, Indian ink, collage, graphite and gold pigment on Fabriano acid-free paper 57cm x 76.3cm
Visual
Visual Arts
art object
Global