Sunday, January 27, 2013

Opting for diverse materials for sculpture making

Hemali Bhuta's latest solo of works entitled, ‘Point-Shift and Quoted Objects’, at Mumbai-based gallery Project 88 is apparently a linear progression from her ‘The Hangover of Agarlum’, though it extends well past it in terms of daring and detail through a tantalizing tug-of-war with set materials’ limits.

While the artist, it seems, goes back to the very basics as far as form and subject matter is concerned, she also tries to push the boundaries of sculpture making in context of materials. In fact, she has been widely experimenting with an array of natural materials since her student days. In a way, the new exhibition is a vivid snapshot of her relationship that she shares with alum, cement, silver, graphite, soap, and plaster of paris as part of her art process.

An accompanying essay by Diana Campbell elaborates how the artist’s sculptural interventions all strive to extend from the natural and simple form of a line, and also how her artworks deftly highlight the fact that even while lines separate end-points, they simultaneously connect the same. To put it in her own words, Bhuta is constantly concerned with the ‘poetics and politics of line.’  She appropriates architectural structures, and her interventions lead to their collapse in terms of both their meaning and function. This process allows for “an introspection of the self” for her.

first completed her diploma in Fine Art (painting) fromMumbai’s L.S. Raheja School of Art (2003) and then did her MFA (painting) from M.S. University, Baroda (2009). She was part of a residency program at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park last year and also exhibited her work at the Sculpture Park as part of the Frieze Art Fair, London.

She has been part of many significant shows such as ‘Lines of Thought’, Parasol Unit, London (2012), ‘India: Art Now’, Arken (2012-13), ‘Indian Highway IV’, MAXXI, Rome (2011) and ‘Indian Highway III’, MAC, Lyon (2010). The artist lives and works in Mumbai.

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