Friday, June 21, 2013

Hemali Bhuta evolves her core concerns in a new solo

Hemali Bhuta’s second solo at Mumbai-based Project88 finds its inspiration much closer to home. During her time away, her yearning for the simplicities of domestic life in India inspired a beguiling body of work, which exalts ordinary fringe details into something sublime and shines light upon ideas of non-duality.

While the artworks in her latest exhibition, as a write-up by Diana Campbell reveals, relate to minimalism and line drawing and aesthetically connect to high art practices, they also pay homage to forms that are often ignored or overlooked—the most mundane parts of daily life and ritual surrounding middle-class life in India.

“Through her sensitive renderings of the forms that separate structures, such as columns which separate floor from ceiling, skirting which separates wall from floor, cornices which separate ceiling from wall, and even faux-flooring which separates the floor surface from the ground, she transforms the gallery into a shrine, a meditative space to contemplate the meaning of these small interventions toward beauty in daily life,” the release further states. She points that a ‘shift of a line’ through folding or displacing it ‘doesn’t delete the line but on the contrary adds another.’

The artist essentially draws on her own experiences, memories and understanding of various elements to create her works; they articulate issues of belonging, security, individuality and change. She aims to investigate the transitory spaces of restlessness between these issues and also to find a way to overcome them.

Hemali Bhuta has participated in several group shows including ‘Tracing Reality’, Gallery Kashya Hildebrand, Zurich,2010; ‘Ballard Estate’, Religare arts initiative, Delhi, 2010; ‘Revisioning Materiality Part II’, Gallery Espace, Delhi, 2009; ‘Moment as Monument’, at Tranvancore Gallery; ‘Video Wednesdays’ at Gallery Espace, Delhi (2008-09).

She has been selected for an exchange program (2009- 2010) at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris. In 2009, she also received the FICA Emerging Artist Award, Delhi and a residency at the Montalvo arts centre, California. She is also a finalist for the Rolex Mentor Protégé Program under Anish Kapoor.

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