WASHINGTON, D.C. — At one of the hubs for the By The People arts festival at the Washington National Cathedral, the art pieces were meant to be installations. However, artist Imran Qureshi found his piece turning into performance art.
Qureshi is an award-winning artist from Pakistan who puts meaning into his work. In his current piece, he covers the National Cathedral’s front steps in blue and white paint. “This is meant to show the idea of life,” Qureshi said. “I tried to create the illusion that the water is coming out of the Cathedral. Man is made up of water. The human body is made up of water.”
Qureshi pointed to the stairs at the front doors of the church. “The mural at the top of the stairs is about the creation of human beings, how life is growing out of water,” he said. “The painting is a dialogue with the mural about creation. I also want to show how life is growing out of water, and have people think about how you are cleansing your soul in a religious place, spiritually.”
Due to rain the previous day, Qureshi was unable to complete his art as planned. On Thursday, while tourists watched, he hurriedly added white highlights to careful splashes of blue on the cobbled plaza in front of the Cathedral. But his work was interrupted by marching soldiers doing their bi-annual training for a state funeral, who trod over the just-dried painting. They took over the area Qureshi painted, causing him to rush to finish.
The state funeral takes place when a past or present president dies. “All of the military services get together, and they perform the state funeral, so right now we’re doing practice runs to make sure it goes smoothly,” said Army Sergeant Zach Bartlett.
The Military District of Washington practices this rare event at least once a year, so the entire ceremony runs perfectly. Steve Saphos, a volunteer verger at the Washington National Cathedral, explained that these practices are to ensure that every member participating in the service knows precisely what they are doing.
Imran Qureshi continues to paint about life and the water flowing through us, no matter who or what tries to prevent him from doing so.
Qureshi has had exhibits displayed in a multitude of places, from the Roof Garden at The Metropolitan Museum of Art to his “hauntingly beautiful show at the Ikon Gallery,” as described by Laura Cumming in her article for The Guardian. Qureshi has won the Lux Style Award for Achievement in Fine Art, the ArtNow Lifetime Achievement Award 2016, the Deutsche Bank Award for “Artist of the Year” in 2013, and was the first Pakistani to be awarded the Medal of Arts Award by the U.S. State Department in 2017.