458.32 Square Meters

The deliberately restrained and ambiguous title 458.32 Square Meters acknowledges the opulent desirable residences (or desres) that urban dwellers aspire to and in pursuit of which, they allow themselves to be pressured, manipulated and moulded; equally, the title is a direct reference to the aggregate of material incorporated in the sculptural forms displayed. Material which is variously layered, affixed, ripped, torn, peeled, burnt, compressed, and subjected to extreme duress manually in the studio environment as well as more strenuously in an industrial setting. The show foregrounds pressures of migration, urbanisation and globalisation, juxtaposing personal experience with overarching meta narratives and theories. The result is a coherent, albeit seemingly minimalist series of works where shapes, forms and identities are transformed through considered interventions in an ongoing practice which constantly questions materiality.

I am hugely inspired by the artist Cornelia Parker, who harnesses the potentiality of materials to speak about a diverse range of subjects. In my work, I strive to employ the same simplicity of form and focus on essentials. Although I do not aim to be Minimalist, the ideology of Minimalism undoubtedly continues to influence the aesthetics and spatial language of my practice.

My practice yokes process with materiality and this is the structure and impetus behind all my works. The materials which inhabit my work range from oil paint and canvas to socially weighted everyday substances such as vermillion powder, henna, silk, sandalwood powder and stretch to urban construction materials like jute and tarpaulin. Each material brings with it its own particular identity, social symbology, weave, texture, structure and colour, which I leverage using a combination of studio and industrial processes often irreversibly altering the inherent properties and contexts.

My studio process is both reflective and meditative, developed through repetitive actions such as layering, tearing, burning, peeling, stacking, folding, bundling, heaping, arranging, compressing and cleaving. These actions and the art works themselves may be read as metaphors for the concealment and revelations of accumulated experiences as well as an ongoing social commentary on the condition of labour.

Each work leads to a series of investigations and each series becomes the foundation for the next. For example, my series ‘Traces and Residues’ was built on the deliberations of ‘Fragments and Residues’ and became a process of contemplation about the psychological aspects of disconnecting and the marks/bruises and the resultant fracturing and fragmentation that ensue. I expanded both the psychological notions and process into a secondary social narrative in the series ‘Works-In-Progress’ and ‘Edges and Residues’ manipulating the materiality of oil paint and the process of peeling with urban social materials like tarpaulin and jute, to allude to the problems of urbanisation with its emphasis on construction, migration and a resultant compression.

My latest series ‘Compressed@@..’, ‘Compressed Slabs’ and ‘Compressed and Cut’ have explored the use of large volumes of paint and substructure. I have extrapolated various studio and industrial processes to produce sculptural pieces that better articulate my experience of rapid urban growth in the environments which I inhabit. Although solid in their structure, these works are far more intimate in nature, exposing a personal geology of lived experience.

To me, compression encapsulates the pattern, rhythm and colour that is unique to urban spaces, industrial materials and labour processes. In these works, the idea of compression is used not only to force a material into a pre-determined mould/space, but also to transform it into acquiring a different shape, form and eventually a different identity. This notion of transformation and compression is embedded not only in the process of making my works, but also in the works themselves.

In short, the works in 458.32 Square Meters are material and process manifestations of subconscious experiences and reflections, where ubiquitous social materials like jute and tarpaulin have replaced the canvas and the studio process has been combined with industrial processes and labour to create highly compressed sculptures of oil paint sheets.

Throughout my practice, colour has remained a vital component – both as an expressive means to create visual sensations as well as a symbolic arbiter of a unified language. Thus each series is often confined to its own predetermined colour palette.

In addition, literature and cinema in various languages and from around the world continue to be major influences in my life and work. I incorporated film as a medium in my site specific installation work, ‘Two Tales and a City’ and my current series of works are videos which dissect the narrative of sexualised presentations of the female body in commercial Indian cinema of the 1980s and 90s, a series that is deeply personal and intimate – part personal memory and part social commentary.

Year2015