Two exhibitions
dal 22/3/2007 al 20/4/2007
Segnalato da
22/3/2007
Two exhibitions
Thomas Erben Gallery, New York
Drawing inspiration from Kama Sutra illustrations, Western art history, and popular culture, Nicola Durvasula emphasizing the intricacies of medium, structure and style. Tejal Shah presents a selection of photographs which elaborate the fantasies of members of transsexual and transgendered community.
Nicola Durvasula: Static Lines and where they take you ...+ Tejal Shah: Hijra Fantasies
In this exciting first US solo-exhibition, Nicola Durvasula expands
her already varied styles of drawing to include a performance in
which a wall piece is perpetually altered. This showing follows her
participation in a strongly received three-person exhibition at the
gallery in Winter 2006.
Drawing inspiration from wide ranging, eclectic sources such as
miniature painting, Kama Sutra illustrations, Western art history,
and popular culture (both East and West); for Durvasula, emphasizing
the intricacies of medium, structure and style is as important as the
imagery itself. Ethnically abstracted humans float through the air in
erotic embraces surrounded by annotations of philosophic ruminations
and even a dead ant, which has been glued to the page.
Casting a light on the complexity of her work's position, the
performance belies the isolated and stable appearance of the
individual drawings. The plans for the piece are conceived and
explored in a draftsman fashion wherein the artist works on a table
that has been set before the exhibition's wall. Viewers are invited
to consider the relationship between the artist's process and
product, her personal and professional identity and the crossing
points of all four. Durvasula's antipathy for the divisions that
individuals maintain in order to provide themselves with identity is
articulated through the never final nature of her work.
Ultimately, this is the statement which all of Durvasula's delicate,
figurative line drawings make; that separations and definitions are
blurry and possess no definitive reality. Articulated with humor, a
broad visual vocabulary and materiality, we are invited to enjoy work
that, in its stillness, moves the boundaries of our appreciation to a
fuller view.
Nicola Durvasula (b. 1960, Jersey, UK) has exhibited with important
venues in India such as Gallery Chemould and Sakshi Gallery, both in
Bombay; and with public and private venues in Europe and the US. Most
recently her work was included in Lila/Play: Contemporary Miniatures
and New Art from South Asia, Victoria, Australia, and exhibited at
Rachmaninoff's, London. Durvasula's work is currently on view at the
Vanity Fair A-listed New British Painting and Works on Paper: Salon
2007 and at i fear, i believe, i desire curated by Gayatri Sinha,
Gallery Espace, New Delhi.
Continuing her work with the Hijra (MTF transsexual/transgendered),
the Bombay-based artist Tejal Shah presents to us a selection of
small and large scale photographs which elaborate the fantasies of
individual members of this community. Ranging from the desire for
children to inventive and complex Gardens of Eden, these dreamscapes
reveal the unique consciousness of it's subjects while playing with
traditional Indian popular and fine art motifs. This presentation
follows Shah's critically well-received solo debut at the gallery in
June, 2006 and coincides with the inclusion of a video work in
"Global Feminism" at the Brooklyn Museum.
Reception: Friday, March 23 6 - 8:30pm
Thomas Erben Gallery
526 W 26th Street, floor 4 - New York