Since May, the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program has featured an assortment of abstract pieces in the Rachel Cooper Art Gallery from Saima Afreen, an artist and Ph.D. candidate in English at Illinois State University. The collection, titled Apricity, features acrylic paintings that combine traditional paint with expired cosmetic items.
Using makeup such as rouge, highlighter, and lipstick, Afreen’s paintings display diverse galactic designs. Apricity refers to “the warmth of the sun in winter” and represents Afreen’s journey recovering from COVID-19.
“Painting came as apricity to me,” Afreen said. “Even in the vast expanse of a frozen Midwestern landscape, I felt this mellow heat melting something in my bones.”
Through painting, Afreen seeks relief and release to her mind and body. After surviving a near-death COVID infection, Afreen arrived in the United States amidst the pandemic to complete her doctorate. Despite recovering from the illness, long-COVID symptoms persisted.
“I would feel tired all the time and wouldn’t sleep,” Afreen said. “On top of that, I was enrolled in creative writing seminars. I was barely able to write.”
She confided in her professor, Ricardo Cruz, about her struggles with writer’s block.
“He asked me what I feel when I think of writing, and I revealed that I see a lot of colors while I think of words, and he suggested that I start painting and submit my artwork as part of the final portfolio,” she said.
In the summer of 2023, Afreen devoted the time she spent awake at night to painting galaxies.
“During this process, I am not separated from thoughts,” she said. “The thinking flows with the paint, maintaining the exactitude of time.”
Prior to seeking her doctorate, Afreen worked full-time as a senior journalist for national newspapers in India.
“Part of my field assignments used to be covering art and photography exhibitions,” she said. “I remember interviewing a senior painter who told me how seeing artworks by different artists for months and years prepares the eyes for understanding visual art.”
When she developed symptoms of COVID, Afreen combined her experience working as a journalist with her insomnia and writer’s block to create expansive paintings.
“Translingualism is of particular interest to me,” she said. “(It’s) a framework that accommodates wordless communication and visual storytelling, giving space to invisible disabilities that we do not talk much about.”
One piece that she selected to be featured is titled “Rag-e-Jaan,” meaning “the jugular vein” in Arabic. It’s painted on an 11×14” cotton canvas depicting a vein collapsing. It’s one of many works she created during sleepless nights.
“I felt something indescribably restless within me as if a very large vein within my body was collapsing,” she said. “Even now, I can’t look at this artwork directly. It unsettles something within me.”
The painting is featured on the cover of her poetry chapbook, Winter Biomythography, detailing her travels as a journalist. Her paintings have become an extension of her mind and body. Afreen described painting as, “a medium of creative expression; painting excavates things buried deep inside me that I am not aware of. The unexpressed is my story, too. (I’m) always ready to gallop out in the world to engage with what else is out there.”
The exhibit, which is free and open to the public, runs through October 31, from 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) Program’s Rachel Cooper Gallery (237 Rachel Cooper Hall). Please contact the WGSS program at wgstudies@IllinoisState.edu with any questions about the exhibit or if you would like to bring students.
