www.exhibit320.com | [email protected] | F-320, Lado Sarai, New Delhi – 110030 | +91-11-46130637
UNEARTH Matter | Time | Process
Artists Arun KS, Astha Butail, Gunjan Kumar, Hemali Bhuta, Manisha
Parekh
Curated by Kanika Anand
www.exhibit320.com | [email protected] | F-320, Lado Sarai, New Delhi – 110030 | +91-11-46130637
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
www.exhibit320.com | [email protected] | F-320, Lado Sarai, New Delhi – 110030 | +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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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Gunjan Kumar Artworks
Gunjan Kumar, Inquiry in Earth, Sand, Clay, Earth Minerals on Japanese Paper, 16 x 20 inches
framed, 2014
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Gunjan Kumar, Sifr A, Turmeric and Earth Minerals on Japanese Mulberry Paper, pasted on
Wood Panel, 16 x 12 inches framed, 2017
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Manisha Parekh Artworks
Manisha Parekh, Earth 1, Paper pulp and pigment, 31 x 26 inches (Framed), 2016
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Installation View
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