Rooted - Curator’s Pick presents a visual narrative of the livelihoods of five young and emerging artists, says Uma Nair
In this overcrowded planet, our urban spaces are no longer the romanticised natural landscape of our agrarian forefathers or the picturesque beauty of heritage monuments. Presenting a rootedness and affinity to their respective locales, five young artists at Rooted - Curator’s Pick at Gallery Espace create a visual narrative of what their livelihoods have been. They trigger conversations around landscapes, climate, Himalayas and coastal communities through their architectural sculpture.
The assemblage in ceramics and painting offer an insight into the workings of young contemporary artists and refer to common concerns. The artists have manipulated the material in different ways with technique and patina from opposing ends of the artistic spectrum, creating an offering that is both challenging and innovative. The series will be held once every two years and will invite senior artists to curate works by emerging artists with the objective of encouraging fresh talent and introducing enthusiasts and collectors to new-age art.
Giri and Kushwaha
Artist Khokan Giri belongs to a remote village in coastal Bengal and his works echo with an ecological aura. Not only are they intrinsically architectural but they also refer to an indigenous lifestyle. His stimulus is the textural detailing of fishing nets, traps and boats of the nulliah fishermen he grew up around. His landscape ‘colograph’ has ember-like tonality and texture.
Yet another delight is artist Harendra Kushwaha’s fragile constructions of paper and cloth. Born to an agricultural family in the Terai in Nepal, his use of homegrown Nepali paper and other kinds of paper turns into a sculptural idiom with a fragile ingenuity that is classic as well as uniquely contemporary. According to Paula Sengupta, who discovered Giri and Kushwaha at the Rabindra Bharti University, Khushwaha resorts to means and material that are “intrinsic” to his roots. He weaves, sews and shreds in order to construct architectural proportions through lightweight paper, operating between two-dimensional constructions and sculptures.
Three ceramic artists
Kristine Michael and Mudita Bhandari’s ceramic works have about them a tensile yet tenuous ardour. Mudita weaves urban and rural constructs in a brilliant installation that blends paper pulp and terracotta. She has been working with terracotta for many years and it is her elegance at handling the medium that stands out. Her little house-like grids speak of humanity and abstraction in the modern sense. She had previously said that her work is related to the different phases in her life, to the things she absorbs, observes and how she responds over many journeys. So most of her work that comes about is both spontaneous as well as reflective of that space within herself. The little houses in the sculptural installation Nesting, reference quietude and a silent symphony, “where the real walls are not as significant. Just like empty quiet spaces, these walls are created within as if one is just wandering around in that empty space.”
Kristine Michael’s Necropolis again mirrors urban dwellings but in its network of columns, we see the rhythms of solitude and soliloquies that remain as residual rhythms within us.
In that vein of rhythms but deeply marine, born of the oceanic tides and beeches, is Japneet Keith’s urchin series that can blow one’s mind. Her compositions herald the power of passion and perfection in the entire sequence of moulding, firing, glazing and creating a series that are a cynosure for the eyes. Her initial days at the NID, Ahmedabad, were spent exploring the possibilities of two and three-dimensional media and other materials. Her interest in ceramics and glass ultimately lead her to select pottery as her true calling. She honed her skills under the watchful eyes of the master Shantanu Jena. She has worked on improbable things that often make their appearances on the pottery wheel. It was a time of intense introspection when she learned the possibilities and limits of clay and glass. She went on to establish a formal studio in 2010 with a space for people to explore materials and learn.
Japneet says that she developed programmes and workshops in her studio to help people explore the possibilities of glass and ceramics as media. But the progression of her workshops was not skill-based or course-based. She adds, “It was designed to introduce people to this wonderful, tactile and often quirky medium. You learn along the way that as you mould clay, clay moulds you.” Nature is at the heart of Japneet’s pottery, with objects and figures in the landscape taking its shape at the wheel. An avid traveller, she is often found exploring the forests, mountains or tide pools in foreign lands where she finds her inspiration in people, land and the art she encounters. From Hummingbirds to Sea Shell Murals to the geometric lines of ancient Iznik designs, her repertoire is also a record of her journeys. Japneet’s sea urchin halt you in your tracks and ask you to ponder about the goodness of the earth and the beauty within. The colour tones, the detailing and the understanding of design dynamics make her the absolute Athena of her own world of perfection and poise.
(The exhibition is on till September 29 at Gallery Espace.)