Mala Iqbal’s new paintings crowd the canvas with figures jostling for space in a great metropolis, each one a reminder that the world is a room we share with strangers, most of whom are looking elsewhere. The work asks a simple question: how much of reality is built by what we see, and how much by what we don’t.
Figures Crowding the Surface
Every canvas carries figures pressed against the surface, moving with the energy of a crowded city street. Many are lit in an orange and yellow glow, a touch of artifice for people living under electric light, places where even the sun isn’t enough. Some paintings drop that effect entirely, like “Through the Curtains” (2026).
Left to right, the scene breaks down into three parts:
- A scene of collapse, hidden behind a tulle curtain that reads like a faded negative.
- A figure reacting almost numbly to what’s happening.
- Another curtain closing the scene with a pictograph-like pattern, turning life into an indecipherable language.
I read it as a metaphor for how our screens deliver collapse and violence with every scroll, faster than we can process it.
Reality Built Layer by Layer
Each work is about the construction of reality, sometimes cobbled together, other times layered and occasionally philosophized through the arrangement of images, figures, and signs. Social realism casts a long shadow over the series, though the mood stays closer to Matisse’s ease than to dread.
“Times Square” (2026) carries a chalky palette like Ben Shahn’s, giving the image its own character without souring into despair.
Subways and False Intimacy
Many of the paintings take place in subways, where false intimacies give us the illusion of knowing each other. But the artist never lets the masks fall away. Faces look away, are obstructed, or are rendered into shapely flourishes, bringing to light strange but enticing surfaces.
One figure stands out as recognizable. That is the painter’s partner, artist Angela Dufresne, in “Subway Riders” (2026). She herself seems to be recording something of her own, staring towards us but not at us. The work reminds us how our own relationships depict us as much as we depict them.
The Curtain Scene
The curtain scene in “Through the Curtains” (2026) is a single work, not a recurring motif across several paintings. It moves from a collapsed scene through a tulle curtain rendering, to a numb reaction, to a final curtain with a pictograph-like pattern. Each layer adds another step between what happens and how we see it — life becomes a picture, a picture becomes a screen, and the screen becomes an indecipherable code.
What the Paintings Ask
Iqbal’s paintings are not just pictures of a city. They are questions about how we see it, and how we miss seeing each other while we’re looking at our phones. The subway scenes in particular carry that tension — false intimacies in a space where everyone is pretending to know each other.
Key Facts Box
- Artist: Mala Iqbal
- Partner featured: Angela Dufresne
- Works mentioned: “Through the Curtains” (2026), “Times Square” (2026), “Subway Riders” (2026)
The paintings force a shift in perspective. Instead of seeing the world as a fixed set of facts, they show it as a constructed reality, layer upon layer of images, figures, and signs. The viewer is left wondering how much of what we experience is direct and how much is filtered.
Source material: “Mala Iqbal Paints the Space We Share With Strangers,” Hyperallergic.
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