Friend is a statuesque bronze cast from styrofoam, which has been painted white with black markings, creating a ghostlike face. The work channels Christopher Wool, Sterling Ruby and the graffitied walls of Karachi, Pakistan, where the artist was born. Her inspirations are non-hierarchical, drawn equally from popular horror movies and science fiction, to ancient artifacts, religious reliquary, modernist sculpture and German neo-expressionism. In this work, Bhabha explores the tensions between permanence and decay, weight and lightness, past and present. Measuring more than 2 meters tall and weighing 360 kg, Friend is a post-industrial monument – a weathered headstone – whose surface has been gnawed and scratched as if by time.
