Place.Labour.Capital (2017). In 2015 Abbas was on a research residency at NTU CCA in Singapore. During this time Abbas learnt the courtly Chinese painting style of Gongbi, a ‘meticulous’ and realist painting technique usually executed on raw silk. Originally trained in miniature painting in the Mughal style, Abbas saw many similarities between the two painting styles. Upon her return to Lahore she used the Gongbi technique to paint portraits of the servers, the cooks and the waiting staff, she had interacted with while consuming daily meals at various eateries in the neighbourhood of Little India in Singapore, from her photographic documentation of her encounters. This draws from her earlier series God Grows on Trees (2008) in which she painted portraits of school children taken from her photos of them in Pakistan’s madrasas (religious schools). By appropriating courtly Chinese techniques to tell the story of the movement of Indian laborers, she reveals the exquisiteness of the intertwining of histories, class, race and culture.
