Trained in the tradition of miniature painting at the National College of Arts in Lahore, Hamra Abbas explores historical techniques, while foregrounding questions of faith and devotion, and challenging Orientalist legacies. Having also lived in the United States and studied in Germany at the University of the Arts Berlin, she engages with a wide range of media, from the ancient Chinese painting style of gongbi, learned during a residency in Singapore in 2015, to paper cutting, video, sculptural installation, and, most recently, historical stone-inlay techniques. Abbas’s work defies the perception of classical art forms as static in time and fixed to one culture. In her work different histories and worlds meet.

Mountain 5 (2023) is the largest work in a series of mosaic panels depicting the world’s second highest peak, K2, which the artist started in 2022. Comprising ten panels that create the impression of a boundless, rocky landscape, this labor-intensive work combines two materials: the sturdiness of granite and the tonal variations of lapis lazuli. Based on Abbas’s own drawing, Mountain 5 was created by cutting and joining the lapis lazuli stone; this was followed by the inlay process, which required fixing the stone on a granite base and polishing it to reveal the final image.

This ancient Roman inlay technique of pietra dura (literally meaning “hard stone” in Italian) was revived during the sixteenth century in Florence. Some scholars have traced its way from there to South Asia, reaching a peak of development during the Mughal Empire. As art historian John Clark has argued, the dynamic of influences passing from Europe to Asia cannot be described as derivative. On the contrary, it has led to distinct art forms and modernisms. For example, pietra dura, called parchin kari in South Asia, evolved into a signature Mughal style defined by colorful, meticulous designs, idyllic landscapes, and garden motifs—exemplified in the seventeenth-century architecture of the Taj Mahal. Continuing the artist’s investigation on representations of paradise and nature in Islam, Mountain 5, is a highly contemporary work, both in terms of its monumental scale and the expressive, almost painterly shadings of bright blues and grays used to create the mountain landscape—for the artist, a space of contemplation and harmony.