A new solo of recent works by Rohini Devasher

The works in Rohini Devasher’s new solo exhibition at New Delhi-based Nature Morte might, at first glance, look more at home in a natural history museum or perhaps a biology archive.
Her artistic practice has long been fascinated with the sciences and the natural world.

An accompanying essay elaborates that the suite of new works by her explores organic growth and evolution through a technological matrix. The artist has invented new species by cannibalizing those of reality. The forms she creates are very familiar yet undeniably alien, encompassing the categories of animal, vegetable and mineral.

She has described these life forms in a wide variety of media. The works on display comprise videos, drawings, prints plus a single sculpture, all of them playing with imaginary microcosms and organic boundaries. Her work largely draws inspiration from biological specimen displays, magnetic resonance imaging and astronomical observations. Instead of creating static images, it appears to breathe and grow.

Born in 1978, the artist lives and works in Delhi. She received her MFA in Printmaking from Winchester School of Art in the UK and her BFA from the College of Art, Delhi. She has exhibited in group shows at the Apeejay Media Gallery and Vadehra Art Gallery, Delhi; Green Cardamom & the British Library, London; Bose Pacia, Kolkata; and the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh. Her solo show, entitled ‘Breed’ was held at Project 88 in Mumbai in 2009. She was awarded the KHOJ International Arts & Sciences Residency as well as the INLAKS Fine Art Award and a Sarai Associate Fellowship.

‘Permutation’ is her first show with Nature Morte, in collaboration with Project 88. Among her major international participations have been in shows at The Courtauld Institute of Art; Frieze Art Fair; the Institut d’art contemporain, Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes courtesy organized with the Musée d’art contemporain of Lyon & the Ecole nationale des beaux-arts of Lyon; Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; Nature Morte, Berlin (2011); MOCA, Taipei; and Hong Kong Art Fair (2010).