The Soul in the Space

Nature Morte presents a series of new photographs by the renowned fashion designer, JJ Valaya, whose foray into professional photography was marked with ‘Decoded Paradox’, an exhibition hosted in New Delhi in January 2011 and later in Mumbai.The series presented famous personalities in costumes designed by him at diverse locations - some historical, some contemporary.

The resulting black-and-white photographs, highly accomplished in their technical aspects, articulated the peculiar combination of elements that typifies India today.JJ Valaya’s second series of photographic works is both more abstract and more personal.

The focus of “The Soul in the Space” is on details of architecture shot in three locations that connect with his own biography: Jodhpur (the city of his birth), Chandigarh (the city where he was raised), and Dufftown, Scotland (where he first discovered architectural photography during an artist’s residency).

With the precise eye of an accomplished designer, Mr. Valaya concentrates on mass, line and texture in both black-and-white and color works, composing starkly dynamic scenarios that approximate a painterly aesthetic but also unmoor the subjects from their original contexts.

In 1992, JJ Valaya stepped into a professional sphere that almost did not exist in India –Fashion. It can be stated that he was privileged enough to be a part of the pioneering group of contemporary Indian fashion designers, the ones who started it all for modern India. A founding member on the Board of Governors of the Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI), and the first official brand ambassador for Swarovski globally, his journey in fashion has been nothing short of the spectacular.

The prints on view will range from large-scale blow-ups that communicate a monumental grandeur to sets of smaller prints that are grouped together, creating syncopated rhythms. Mr. Valaya’s palette is purposefully reductive yet still highly sumptuous, relishing the chromatic nuances to be discovered in stone, metal and concrete. On view also, at their gallery at Oberoi Gurgaon hotel from November 4th will be a selection of works from Mr. Valaya’s “Decoded Paradox” series.