In her first solo exhibition with Sullivan+Strumpf, Kanchana Gupta offers a visceral and studied response to the urban environments she has inhabited for the past 25 years. Through the use of various quotidian materials exposed to extraordinary processes and compression, Gupta foreshadows the inadequacies of her dense urban surroundings. The show juxtaposes this overarching meta-narrative against Gupta’s own spatial and environmental experiences; underscoring the unprecedented consequence of migration, urbanisation and globalisation.
The deliberately restrained and ambiguous title 458.32 Square Meters acknowledges the opulent desirable residences (or desres) that urban dwellers pursue and aspire to. In order to attain this, they allow themselves to be pressured, manipulated and moulded; much like the aggregate of material utilised in sculptural forms for the present show.
Layered, affixed, ripped, torn, peeled, burnt, and compressed, the materials are subjected to extreme manual duress in the studio environment, and subsequently in a more strenuous industrial setting. The result is a coherent, albeit minimalist series of works, where shapes, forms and identities are transformed through reflective interventions in Gupta’s ongoing practice that continually questions materiality.
