‘Permutation’ at Gallery Nature Morte

The works in Rohini Devasher’s new solo exhibition at New Delhi-based Gallery 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.

This suite of new works, as an accompanying note explains, explores organic growth and evolution through a technological matrix. Devasher 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.

Key areas of contemplation and discovery to her remain pattern recognition and pattern formation within organic form and an understanding of the universal underlying structure within nature’s complexity. Rohini Devasher has described these life forms in a variety of media. The works exhibited comprise videos, prints, drawings and a single sculpture, all playing with organic boundaries and imaginary microcosms.

Her works draw inspiration from biological specimen displays, astronomical observations, and magnetic resonance imaging but rather than creating static images, her works appear to breathe and grow. Born in 1978, the artist received her MFA in Printmaking from Winchester School of Art in the UK and her BFA from the College of Art in New Delhi. She has exhibited her works in group shows at the Apeejay Media Gallery and Vadehra Art Gallery in Delhi, Green Cardamom and the British Library in London, Bose Pacia in Kolkata, and the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh. Her solo show “Breed” was held at Project 88 in Mumbai in 2009.

The artist was awarded the KHOJ International Arts & Sciences Residency as well as the INLAKS Fine Art Award and a Sarai Associate Fellowship. Rohini Devasher lives and works in New Delhi. ‘Permutation’, her first show with Nature Morte in collaboration with Project 88, continues till the second week of December 2011.