Huma Bhabha
Touching Earth

Huma Bhabha’s new body of work was made during a three-week residency at Casa Wabi in early 2022. She traveled from Poughkeepsie, a small city on the Hudson River north of New York City, escaping winter and discovering the Oaxacan coast. Alongside a group of fellow artists in residence — each making work in their own studios, sharing meals and the experience of this unique meeting of landscape, culture, and Tadao Ando’s architecture — Bhabha has experimented with local materials and traditional methods to create an installation that brings into dialogue with this remarkable place her own very distinctive aesthetic.

Accompanying the gallery installation, Bhabha has created an outdoor work for the Casa Wabi sculpture garden. Made with the same Oaxacan clay, it echoes the slender vertical form of a ubiquitous type of local cactus, surmounted by a head to create a figure. Thus, Huma’s Sentinel stands guard, a benign and watchful creative spirit.