“The pattern-making process is time-consuming, not the sort of labour that’s meditative. It started off as a sympathetic gesture in perseverance but later grew into an obsession.” - Noor Mahnun (Anum)

Noor Mahnun’s works often feature geometric patterns as a decorative element. It reveals her close attention to the infinite variety of simple motifs around us, in tiling or tessellation, which is frequently seen as background or design in the tradition of ornamentation. In this new body of work, she has developed a series of diptychs, pairing a figurative or still life panel with a corresponding pattern. Her gesture is an attempt at ‘matchmaking’ the subject with a repetitive design that might have subliminal connotations and is somehow related in its juxtaposition. This format also suggests a visual coherency in its considered configuration, coupling the ordinary with and the abstract.