Huma Bhabha

(Pakistani, born 1962)

Huma Bhabha is a contemporary American-Pakistani artist known for her tactile sculptures and drawings. Made from humble materials such as Styrofoam, clay, construction scraps, and wire mesh, some of her best-known works are large, totemic figures. These works often offer only the most subtle suggestion of a face or body in their reference to both tribal art and Modernism. “Looking at science fiction movies and comic books, I realized that the artists making them were using African masks and the art of other times and cultures to develop their characters,” she explained of her influences. “So I began buying cheap plastic masks and using them as armatures for much more elaborate masklike sculptures that eventually incorporated papier-mâché, modeling paste, and found objects.” Born in 1962 in Karachi, Pakistan, Bhabha came to the United States in 1981 to pursue her studies at the Rhode Island School of Design, graduating with a BFA in 1985, and then Columbia University, where she completed her MFA in 1989. The artist’s work has since been exhibited extensively, including at P.S.1’s “Greater New York” survey show in 2005, the Gwangju Biennial in 2008, the Whitney Biennial in 2010, and the Venice Biennale in 2015. Her work can be found in the public collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. In 2018, she was named by the Metropolitan Museum of Art as the artist for the museum’s annual Cantor Roof Garden Commission. Bhabha currently lives and works with her husband Jason Fox in Poughkeepsie, NY.