The work began with an investigation of accommodation and hospitality around communal rituals of eating and gathering for Islamic prayer. The artist studied her personal memory and living practice, both in her own family's home and in the wider Islamic community.
The idea is that of an overlapping patchwork of cloths or carpets which facilitate gathering around the sharing of food and prayer. These cloths and carpets are kept clean and ready to use to extend a clean space for gathering and dining - an unspoken symbol of welcome and accommodation, they extend an invitation to sit and share food, bringing unity. There is always endless scope for extending the dining space with the addition of more cloths or carpets. There is never a restriction or a moment at which there isn’t room at the table or when the size of the table limits the gathering of people. The floor area is continually extendable and the low sitting position allows people to feel a sense of collectivity and to linger at leisure.
In Chowdhary's Code series, there is a hybridisation of disparate geometries. The confluence of two artistic traditions and the intersection of cultural heritage and identity, the Islamic aesthetic tradition of geometrical order and lines as well as the western heritage of minimalist geometric abstraction.
The paintings are composed of thin board, in which the individual shapes are laser cut. They replicate the traditional craft of marquetry. Each piece is painted then pieced together and adhered to an underlying board.
