Analysis of "It’s Me" by Huma Bhabha and "Dancing Figure" in Terms of Portraying The Human Figure

For my comparison essay, I chose to compare a piece by Pakistani Artist Huma Bhabha titled “It’s Me” from 2013 with a piece called “Dancing Figure” from about 2300-1750 BCE. In both of these pieces you can see that the artists where heavily influenced by the structure of the human body, and each have a sense of movement about them. Each piece has its own unique features. They both share a similar way of portraying the human figure and each still require a lot of thinking to determine what the figure is actually doing.

The first piece, by Huma Bhabha gives you the feel that the statue is supposed to be many figures mashed into one. The feeling one gets from looking at this piece is unnerving. You cannot help but look deeply into the dark circular “eyes” on what appears to be the head of the sculpture. Your eyes naturally transition up to the bright blue above the eyes, and then down to the almost ancient looking sculpture below. To me, it almost looks like someone took a historical piece that didn’t have a head and took a charcoal stick, a blue crayon and a chunk of pure white Styrofoam and decided to put humpty dumpty back together again. The body of the piece looks as though someone carved into a piece of dark wood or a very old and stained piece of sandstone. One of the most prominent features of the entire piece is what I perceive to be the nipples of the sculpted figure. I did look at a variety of images of this piece and found that in a warmer lighted setting you can very distinctly see the red markings all over the sculpture, unlike the first image I have included were they are barely visible.

The second, and much older piece is a very small limestone sculpture from Harappa, Pakistan that measures in at about 3 7/8 inches, or if you are more fond of the metric system, nearly 10 centimeters. That is smaller than an iPhone! This piece, while still visually interesting is a much simpler than the one previously mentioned. With no head, arms, and only one leg this piece leaves a lot to the imagination as to why it is titled the Dancing Figure. In another era, this sculpture may have had the remainder of its limbs and head but how we have it now, it has none of those key features.

One amazing similarity between each piece is the way that each of them depict the human figure. Now, each piece was created in a completely different time and place but there are some clear similarities to the two. The most prominent for me, is how each artist chose to do the chest. It is hard to miss the fact that the ancient Dancing Figure is a male, and Bhabha’s piece is undoubtedly a female, but the way that each decided to do the nipples are nearly identical.

The second similarity between these pieces is the fact that they definitely give the viewer a lot of room to guess as to what the figures are trying to convey. Bhabha’s piece almost feels as if there is a prominent figure standing between two others who are not as visible, and are perhaps smashed into the back of the first.