Flor Khan Works In Bronx Studio, Invoking Ancestral Memory

(MENAFN- USA Art News) Artist Flor Khan reflects on her creative process in her Bronx, New York City studio, where she has been working since March. Her practice involves collapsing time and tenderly reviving ancestral memories, according to the 358th installment of the“A View From the Easel” series.

Khan's typical studio day begins around 4 PM, after her daytime job. She often works on two to three pieces simultaneously, with one developing color in her photo processing station, another drying on a work line, and a third steeping in tannins. She also incorporates her sewing machine once fabrics have dried.

Before starting, Khan lights a salt lamp and a candle for her ancestors, seeking their permission to bring their memories to life. She states that each stitch and photo transfer connects her to these memories, whether she is working with Victorian-era postcards featuring her Indo-Caribbean aunties or photo albums belonging to her late father. Background music for her sessions is often provided by NPR's“Tiny Desk” series, featuring the artist of the week.

Khan describes her studio as a sacred space, blessed by the presence of works in progress that maintain her creative flow through continuous conversation. She finds solace in the dim candlelight during rain, entering a different world where she can process grief, embrace catharsis, and allow her creations to evolve organically without needing all the answers.

Her studio is part of the Kreate Hub community in the Bronx, which she finds welcoming and inspiring, with hallways adorned by art from neighboring studios. The hub also hosts small businesses, including studios for makeup design, costume, and film production. Khan's studiomate and partner, a muralist and painter, often collaborates with her late into the night. They plan to co-host a cyanotype-painting workshop focused on New York City landscapes in the coming weeks.

Khan appreciates the late-night silence of her studio, away from main road distractions, where she can hear distant trains, raindrops, and the candle flickering. This environment allows her to immerse herself in creation, leaving pieces unfinished without the need to clean up immediately, enabling the process to unfold at its own pace.

Her primary wish for the studio is more space for her tannins and running water closer to her workspace. Currently, her water basin is down the hall, and a slop sink is necessary for washing photo processors. Despite this, she expressed gratitude for her humble beginnings.

Khan's favorite local museum is El Museo del Barrio, located uptown. She values its accessibility for local artist communities and its focus on Latin American and Caribbean culture and history. She was particularly impressed by their recent exhibition,“Sophie Rivera: Double Exposures,” which resonated with her as a Xicana-Latina artist. She highlights Rivera's 1980s gelatin prints of children's portraits, which depicted class systems and lives on New York City streets.

Photography and alternative photographic processes are Khan's preferred art materials. She uses image-making to revisit memories of passed family and loved ones, reinterpreting images by overlaying meaning with cartography, sewing news images, or mending parts that feel incomplete. When working with 19th-century postcard images, she challenges the colonial gaze, restoring historical context and agency to women often eroticized and staged in ways that misrepresented their lived realities. Khan believes alternative photographic processes reveal layers of colors and shadows within a single image, enabling her as the artist to rewrite their narratives.

Source: Hyperallergic

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