‘Nostalgia, Pride and Fear’ at Gallery BMB, Mumbai

“The nostalgia of what we had, the pride of what we have and the fear of what we may not have.”

In spite of practicing in different parts of the world, the artists are working along the concept of nature, the biosphere and the idea of presenting death in the hope of the future.

“We are observing this phenomenon as by-standers, unable to contribute to the cure within our (human) interaction with nature...”

The above lines from a conceptual note give an insight into the core concept of a group show, entitled ‘Nostalgia, Pride and Fear’ at Gallery BMB, Mumbai.
Allison Kudla, Ratna Gupta, Tatiana Musi, Teresa Gruber, and Soazic Guézennec are the participating artists. Allison Kudla presets a set of photographic prints
Manicured Field' from a series that began in 2008.

In this piece, a living natural system takes on the form of a manufactured pattern. Leaves are intricately cut into a bilaterally symmetrical Arabesque pattern and suspended in tiling square Petri dishes that contain the nutrients necessary to promote new leaf growth. Here the cultured leaves are provided with the hormones that cause the cells to produce new leaf tissue. The newly growing leaves are extending the form of the traditionally inspired botanical motif. The process of generation and degeneration is an integral part of the artist’s work.

On the other hand, Ratna Gupta’s work is a documentation of her life and her surroundings. Her latex works that have been cast by the barks of specific trees and the root of the tree that is cast in fiberglass are all frozen moments of passage of time that she has captured and made immortal. She believes that at some point, we will not be able to enjoy what we have now, and therefore she is presenting ‘death’ in the hope of the future.

Tatiana Musi created ‘Mind Fills’ during her residency in Varanasi. The garden there became a part of her everyday life, where she took plants from it to be transplanted into containers that are used by the people of Varanasi in everyday life. Her paintings are a visual, emotional and atmospherical reconstruction of the memory of the garden created in very painterly, but yet minimal style.

Teresa Gruber’s 'Tree Portraits' were taken on site using a white backdrop and natural light – bringing the photo studio into the forest instead of digging up and stirring the protagonists. Soazic Guezennec reflects a deep ecological sensibility, and a concern about our planet future, which she expresses in paintings as well as in video, installation, or in situ interventions. The anthropological boxes are also questioning the relationship between nature and civilization.