Kushana Bush (born 1989) lives and works in Dunedin, New Zealand. Bush produces delicate gouache paintings on paper that reference Persian miniatures, illuminated manuscripts and European art history, blending imagery from different places and times to comment on the present.
Her dense compositions are alive with colour, pattern and movement. At first glimpse, they are filled with drama, pageantry and animated human interaction. On closer inspection, they reveal disquieting scenes of human folly.
VCE ART – ANALYICAL FRAMEWORKS
Analytical frameworks are a lens through which we can look at works of art and design to give us different perspectives and expand our understanding.
Within the VCE Art Study Design we use the Structural, Personal, Cultural and Contemporary Frameworks:
The Structural Framework is used to analyse how the style, symbolism and structural elements of artworks contribute to the meanings and messages conveyed.
The Personal Framework is used to discuss how a work of art might reflect the artist’s personal feelings, thinking and life circ*mstances and how the viewer’s interpretations of the work are influenced by their own life experiences.
The Cultural Framework is used to identify the influence on an artwork of the context of time, place and the society in which it was made.
The Contemporary Framework is used to interpret how contemporary ideas and issues influence the making, interpretation and analysis of artworks from both the past and present.
KUSHANA BUSH,The ones behind this, 2015
Structural framework
Kushana Bush’s The ones behind this, 2015, depicts a crowd gathered about a table cum stage, under a white pavilion in front of a high, patterned wall. Pipers play their instruments in unison to the left, while on the right figures strive to turn and support a large spoked wooden wheel. Dangling suspended by one leg from a rope in the centre is a deer, its eyes open and hooves delicately pointed. Some of the figures, tongues out, strain towards the deer to lick it.
The massed bodies – a mixture of sexes, ages and cultures – engage in a timeless ritual of celebration with an air of desperate absurdity. Muted colours unify the busy composition, which, like the wheel, draw the eye around the circle of human drama. In the empty space on the stage stand three blue and white ceramic vessels, incongruous and static in the human throng.
The symbols of sacrifice (the deer), celebration (music, flags, feasting), culture (pots and tiles), control (the wheel) and destiny (the wheel of fortune) imply that we are all swept along by forces beyond our control.
The figures are piled up high, close to the top of the picture plane, putting the viewer squarely inside the chaotic activity.
Cultural framework
Kushana Bush’s works draw influence from many artistic traditions to comment on contemporary society and current affairs:
KB: Who are the ones behind all this carnage? Not me, we say, pointing to others, yet we know that in our inaction, we are also responsible.
This work was painted in 2015, but a painting speaks across time, and since then we’ve become all too familiar with bunting, fanfare and mob mentality at the surreally televised Trump rallies.
Here the dignified musicians play on, despite the carnal tide who wrestle control with what they think is a steering wheel. Perhaps it is just a symbolic wheel of life, whose turn next?
In the age of digital media, the 24-hour news cycle delivers local and international news directly and relentlessly. Politics becomes theatre and human drama of unimaginable scale and tragedy is reduced to sound bites and stories. Bush observes our own era in the timeline of human history and suggests that we have not advanced very far.
Personal framework
Kushana Bush is inspired by art from the past and from different cultures and traditions, but the characters in her work are inspired by her reaction to the world events she hears unfolding as she works.
KB:The faces and their multiplicity of expressions could be any single person’s reaction to one event. Shock, sadness, pity, anger, spite, we oscillate between these reactions to a single current event all in a 24-hour news cycle. I notice these feelings as I’m painting a single painting over the course of a few months. What I started out feeling towards a single news story is never what I finish with.
Bush describes her work as a way to come to grips with the world.
KB:The real world is full of failure and discontent. In my little painted world, I get to play god. That’s very empowering. I think the tragi-comic is a useful term to describe them – the paintings challenge us tolaugh or be doomed
(http://pantograph-punch.com/post/interview-with-kushana-bush)
Contemporary framework
These descriptions capture Bush’s ability to draw from the iconic imagery and style of past traditions to express both the grand narratives and the personal complexities of modern life. Her visual language is fresh and witty, young and wise, quoting contemporary culture as well as that of the past.
In a digital age, Bush eschews technology to use processes that involve time, precision and manual skill. She works exclusively in gouache. Her technique involves tracing multiple drawings and then painting in a medium that doesn’t allow room for error.
Questions for students
Structural framework
How does Bush’s manipulation of scale affect the work? How does Bush use space and depth? How is symbolism important in the work?
How does the artist’s style affect the way you interpret the work?
How do Bush’s techniques and processes add to her work?
How are Bush’s influences – Persian miniatures and Japanese prints– evident in her work?
Cultural framework
What contemporary ‘carnage’ is Bush referring to in her comment?
How important is the artist’s commentary for understanding this work?
In what other ways might this work be seen to represent the time in which it was made?
Personal Framework
Find out more about Kushana Bush
What personal associations does Bush’s work hold for you? What cultural references do you recognise? How do these affect your interpretation of the work?
How is humour used in Bush’s work?
How important is it that the viewer understand her artistic and cultural references?
Contemporary framework
What contemporary ideas are evident in Bush’s paintings?
What might be the ‘contemporary anxieties’ referred to by David Eggleton?
Create
Find some examples of Persian miniature painting. Observe and describe the artists’ composition and use of colour and space.
Make your own miniature painting in gouache, inspired by an historical painting and an aspect of current affairs.
