unearth matter | time | process · unearth matter | time | process artists arun ks, astha butail,...

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UNEARTH Matter | Time | Process

Artists Arun KS, Astha Butail, Gunjan Kumar, Hemali Bhuta, Manisha

Parekh

Curated by Kanika Anand

http://www.exhibit320.com/

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LISTINGS DETAIL: August 2017 Unearth – Curated Show – Arun KS, Astha Butail, Gunjan Kumar, Hemali Bhuta, Manisha Parekh

Exhibit 320 pleased to presents, ‘UNEARTH’ a curated group show by Arun KS,

Astha Butail, Gunjan Kumar, Hemali Bhuta and Manisha Parekh

Preview Date: Friday, August 4th 2017, 6:30 pm – 9:00 pm, onwards

Exhibition Dates: 5th August 2017 – 4th September 2017

Exhibition Venue:

Exhibit320

F – 320, Lado Sarai,

New Delhi – 110030

Timings:

11:00 am to 6:30 pm

For press enquiries, please contact Smriti Arora: Gallery Manager|[email protected]|+91-11- 46130637





About the Exhibit320 Gallery

Exhibit320 showcases contemporary art from India and the subcontinent, creating a platform

for exploration of artistic expression and dialogue. The exhibition space focuses on

contemporary art, engaging with new thought and material.

Over the years, it has evolved to encourage and support growing, contemporary talent, as

well as showcase some of the finest contemporary art practitioners in India and the

subcontinent. Our aim is to promote an understanding of art and aesthetic through creative

ventures which seek to explore new media, forms of expression and redefine visual

language. We have been actively taking part in international art fairs such as Art Dubai, Art

Basel Hong Kong, Art Stage Singapore, Shanghai Contemporary and the India Art Fair.

Conceptualized by Rasika Kajaria, Exhibit 320 is an experimental art space located in the

heart of Lado Sarai, New Delhi. Being an adherent admirer, patron and collector herself she

is sharing her philosophy and understanding of art with the viewers. Exhibit 320 supports

seminars, lectures, talks and discussions that contextualise art within a critical discourse.

To further this endeavor of being more than a space that showcases art, Exhibit 320 formed a

nonprofit initiative, 1after320.

1after320 was formed to increase the possibilities of what art can be and expand the

educational initiatives beyond the space of the gallery in Lado Sarai and into the public

realm. Through supporting public art exhibitions, ephemeral installations, lectures, talks, and

exchange with international artists, 1after320 aims to take a step further toward public

engagement by supporting innovative interventions and alternatives to conventional

commercial shows. 1after320 accepts proposals from individuals and non-profit organizations

to widen the scope of the art that is shown in Delhi beyond what is supported by galleries

and without a commercial agenda. It provides a platform for new voices from both India

and abroad to engage with India and contribute to the exciting development of

Contemporary Art in India.




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UNEARTH Matter | Time | Process

Artists: Arun KS, Astha Butail, Gunjan Kumar, Hemali Bhuta, Manisha Parekh Curated by Kanika Anand

UNEARTH

Matter | Time | Process

Artists: Arun KS | Astha Butail | Gunjan Kumar | Hemali Bhuta | Manisha Parekh

Curated by Kanika Anand

Unearth explores the ‘geological’ as a condition of the present.

Evolving beyond the scientific study of the earth’s surface, geology has presented significant

markers of time, process and matter, each employed anew by artists to contemplate our

place in history.

Rooted in the logic of land art and the processes of materiality, Unearth presents artistic

practices that harness the elements, as method or as metaphor. Each artist’s practice draws

from the physical and temporal possibilities of earth materials and crafts an abstract

language of precise proportions. Defined by their processes, the art suggests an intuitive

understanding of our present moment, unearthed from historical and mythological traditions,

in parallel to the knowledge of scientific inquiry.

The exhibition is a journey through ethereal landscapes, memory patterns and maps,

biomorphic forms and abstractions of nature. The artists’ tendency to turn to nature is

complimented by a desire to look inward. For instance, Gunjan Kumar embraces the

physicality of material through the spiritual understanding of non-duality. Working with

turmeric as both pigment and surface, Sifr, 2017 comprises rows of cones, made by the

circular motion of the hand, while in Saafa, 2017 all but one cone is veiled behind a screen of

cotton muslin. The process of making is a meditation in itself, performed through the delicate

whirling of the fingers around the circumference of the turmeric cone.

The origins of matter are defined by geological processes that are immeasurable, for matter

is continually transformed by the substances and mediums it comes in contact with.

Fractioning the duration of the process is the work of Hemali Bhuta. Her nine frames of

graphite rub on sandpaper present the grades of the mineral in its elemental form, subverting

its role as a tool for writing or drawing.




Delving into the metaphysical is Astha Butail’s sculpture, Twin Sisters Dawn and Night, 2017

inspired by the Hindu Goddesses of Usha and Ratri. Celebrating the tension between the

opposites that sustains all earthly life, the piece also plays off the material relationship

between physical matter, its function or redundancy and the incorporeal.

Manisha Parekh presents three works in hand made paper: a series of eleven Untitled paper

cut drawings of biomorphic forms, a tortured surface titled Scars, 2011 and a suite of five pulp

works titled Earth, 2016. Begun as an experiment with the material, where the act of

immersing in pigment lent to the discovery of a range of astral browns and blues, the pulp

works appear to suggest a transient moment between the material and cosmic worlds, or

perhaps an elusive memory of our being that remains forever in the subconscious mind.

Arun KS’s stratified paintings reflect his interest in time and in the keeping of memories

sandwiched between its layers. With a penchant for more expansive fields, his meticulously

detailed paintings are a somewhat ritualized telling of history- episodes added and eroded

along the way.

Dwelling on the materiality of objects made of or in reference to the earth’s geological

processes, Unearth questions our understanding of matter within the larger logic of the

physical world that exists as is, and the unfolding of our environment, in relation to its

inhabitants. Informed by the disciplines of astronomy, craft and pre-historic traditions, the

exhibition lies at the crossroad of art, science and faith and is an attempt to reconcile and

recalibrate our awareness of the present with the absolute dimensions of time and space.

Text by Kanika Anand

July, 2017

References:

Beatty, Reg. (Ed.) Elizabeth Ellsworth and Jamie Kruse, Making the Geological Now:

Responses to Material Conditions, (2012)

Ingold, Tim. Materials against Materiality, Archaeological Dialogues 14 (1) 1–16,

Cambridge University Press, (2007)

(Ed.) Lange-Berndt, Petra. Materiality, Whitechapel: Documents of Contemporary Art

(2015)

Pellitero, Ana Moya. The phenomenological experience of the visual landscape,

Research in Urbanism Series 2.1 (2011): 57-71.




About the Artists Astha Butail

Astha Butail, born in 1977 in Amritsar, India unravels Indian mythology and methods

of storytelling and memory. Her work is a collection of experiences, poems, sketches, stories

that interact with one another.

Astha Butail’s recent solo exhibition ‘Locus of Being’ was presented at& GALLERYSKE,

Bangalore (2017). Her recent group exhibitions include ‘Raster Emerging from the grid’,

Experimenter, Kolkata (2016), ‘Codes of Culture’, GALLERYSKE, New Delhi (2015). Her

commission was presented in the exhibition ‘Fracture – Indian Textiles, New Conversations’ at

the Devi Art Foundation, Gurgaon (2015). Her debut solo exhibition, ‘Manifested Ratios,’ was

shown at GALLERYSKE Bangalore (2014). She has exhibited at Devi Art Foundation’s Sarai

Reader (2013) and Masque libros Artists’ Book Fair, Madrid (2013). Her project ‘in& the

Absence of Writing’ has been selected for the BMW Art Journey 2017. Butail lives and works in

Gurgaon, India.

Arun KS

More than some others, perhaps, process is integral to Arun KS.'s art. And it's an elaborate

one that begins with the artist collecting used, well-thumbed Bibles; he then prepares the

canvas, covering it with several layers of brown paper, paper pulp, and many coats of

watercolor wash, before painting on it, often covering the entire surface with abstracted

images associated with his Christian faith. Finally, he cuts out pages from the Bibles and sticks

them carefully so as to cover the entire painted area. Each layer is also punctuated with a

careful rub down with the sander to give the surface of the canvas a smooth and glossy

finish, deceptive because it masks the many layers that went into its making even as it hints

at a complex maelstrom of painted effects and hidden imagery. The final result is akin to a

tapestry, carefully and densely wrought with each little detail adding to the immersive effect

of the entire piece. Arun’s painterly process is, thus, not just as a mode of painting but a

visual embodiment of abstraction — beginning with the “real” and then carefully chipping

away at it to make the inherent forms, textures and shapes visible.

Gunjan Kumar

Gunjan Kumar is born and raised in Punjab, India. She is an Economics Graduate and has

studied Textile Design from National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi. She has keen

interest in age-old methods, archeology, pre-historic and tribal arts and has traveled

extensively exploring her interest in these areas. These experiences form the undertone of her

artistic practice. Self-taught in arts, she uses ground earth and minerals like shell oysters, clay,

calcium carbonate, turmeric etc. as her core mediums, meticulously applied on Japanese

paper, using a self-developed technique inspired by traditional methods. She is a fellow at

the Edward Albee Foundation (2016 – 2017), New York and is working on three forthcoming

shows in 2017, a four-person show at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, Chicago, a two-

person show at the Chicago Art Department and a solo show at the Olivet Nazarene

University, Bourbonnais, Illinois.




Her other interests include collecting and vocalizing folk music. She currently lives and works

in Chicago

Manisha Parekh

Manisha Parekh was born in Gujarat in 1964 and raised in New Delhi. She holds an M.A. in

painting from both the Royal College of Art in London (1991-93) and the M.S. University in

Baroda (1983-1990). She was one of the founding members of Khoj International Artists

Workshop.

Parekh is one of the few artists working in India today who continues to explore an exclusively

abstract language. It could be said that her works are indebted to the ethereal abstractions

of Gaitonde and the geometric draftsmanship of Nasreen Mohammedi (who was one of her

teachers in Baroda), as well as the more gestural ink drawings of Jeram Patel. She has

developed an artistic practice which also pays reference to the craft and textiles traditions

of her native land. The artist straddles painting, collage and drawing to create works that

incorporate both the geometric and the organic. Her most recognized works are created by

layering shapes cut from handmade papers into dense fields of pattern and energy,

sometimes perforating the surface and adding other materials.

Numerous solo shows of Parekh's work have been held across the world, most recently at the

Dr. Bhau Daji Lad City Museum, Mumbai and her work is part of public and private art

collections in India and internationally, including the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, Delhi, Lalit

Kala Akademi, Ahmedabad, Jehangir Nicholson Collection, Mumbai, Royal College of Art,

London, Davey & Chester Herwitz Collection, Boston, Heinrich-Boll-Stiftung, Cologne, and

Robert Lodar Collection, London.

Hemali Bhuta

Hemali Bhuta's multi-disciplinary practice is primarily concerned with the notion of an 'in

between' or 'transitory' space and the elements that contain or create such spaces. For

Bhuta, 'in-between-ness' is a plane where the limitations of dimensionality do not apply and

there is a possibility for transcendence. By attempting to translate one medium or form to

another, her practice questions the authority that frames an interior for its own purpose.

Bhuta adopts materials that seem robust and ageless, but in fact are susceptible to

disintegration over time, to reveal how appearances can be deceptive. Her site-specific

sculptural works generally lie on the floor like fossils of bygone eras, sometimes embracing

their spaces, and other times destabilizing them. Through the tension between the works and

the spaces they inhabit, viewers experience a state of 'in-between-ness.'

Hemali Bhuta (b. 1978) has completed her BFA from the L.S. Raheja School of Art, Mumbai

and her MVA from the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University Baroda. She has also pursued

interior designing from Sophia Polytechnic in Mumbai. Bhuta has exhibited at Yorkshire

Sculpture Park, Frieze London Sculpture Park, Parasol Unit, Arken, the 9th Shanghai Biennale,

the Singapore Biennale, as well as in the travelling Indian Highway Exhibition. She was

shortlisted for the Rolex Protegee Award.

In addition to her practice as a visual artist, Bhuta is also the co - founder and director of

CONA Foundation, an artist run space in Mumbai.




Astha Butail Artworks

Astha Butail, Twin Sisters, Night and Drawn, (Usha and Ratri), Nylon thread and teak wood

rods, 63.9 x 16.2 inches, 2017




Arun KS Artworks

ARUN KS, Untitled, Art powder color, watercolor and ink on ply primed with paper pulp and

pages from the Bible, Center panel concrete and wax, 6 x 12 inches, each (triptych), 2013




Hemali Bhuta Artworks

Hemali Bhuta, 1)(80)(12b)(2h), 2)(100)(8b)(h), 3)(120)(6b)(hb), 4)(150)(4b)(b), 5)(180)

(2b)(2b), 6)(220)(b)(4b), 7)(320)(hb)(6b), 8)(400)(h)(8b), 9)(600)(2h) (12, Various types of

graphite on various grades of sandpaper, 11 x 9 inches each, set of 9 (framed), 2015




Gunjan Kumar Artworks

Gunjan Kumar, Inquiry in Earth, Sand, Clay, Earth Minerals on Japanese Paper, 16 x 20 inches

framed, 2014




Gunjan Kumar, Sifr A, Turmeric and Earth Minerals on Japanese Mulberry Paper, pasted on

Wood Panel, 16 x 12 inches framed, 2017




Manisha Parekh Artworks

Manisha Parekh, Earth 1, Paper pulp and pigment, 31 x 26 inches (Framed), 2016




Installation View

