S T A G I N G   T H E   S E T S

2 0 0 7  –  2 0 0 8    S E R I E S

B H A R A T I   K A P A D I

The solo show then travels to the Sigmund Freud University, Vienna from 7^th - 28th May '08 and then in a joint exhibition with sculptor Thomas Holzer, Klaus Lea Galerie, Munich, 4^th - 24th June '08.

The Guild Art Gallery is pleased to Preview Bharati Kapadia’s latest oeuvre of works. Bombay based artist Bharati Kapadia is a well-known personality on the contemporary Indian art platform.  Over the years, she has consistently shown work which is strikingly original in formal innovation. Dealing with issues related to inner evolution, memory and identity, she works with techniques in which the intervention of light becomes crucial for a complete experience of the art work. Her earlier works with rope and handmade paper were placed away from the wall and lit from the back. When light penetrated the work's paper body, its inner landscape lit up and stood revealed to our eyes. The constancy of her engagement with light as a catalyst to animate her work, is intimately linked to the artist's quest for gaining access to the inner light of realization without which, transformation of the self cannot occur

Bharati Kapadia believes her new series of works are a refinement of a message that she’s been exploring for years.  Looking closely at the works reveal many of the same themes made clear by Bharati’s watchful and benevolent hand, but these pieces tell a different side of the story. This is no simple project, no crafty doodling.  Her art is her mission, like many artists, she comes to her work from an inner drive. Her concern is less for the work as technical exploration than as spiritual discourse.  Her experimentation with medium is wholly subservient to a larger purpose, where it less about seeking the boundaries of a medium than about mastering that medium for communication.  Language is a tool she wields well implanting understanding directly into the viewer.

Kapadia’s philosophy seems to drive her to create.  It pushes her to evoke something important and primal, challenging her to do it effectively. Instead of gently scraping away paper to reveal the translucent and tender skin inside in her earlier series, here she has begun to build her homunculi from scraps and surface treatments, stitching them together and breathing life into their frozen souls by covering them with hot paint and handprints. 

Larger in scale and made of denser material, these works have a concrete presence; they feel like the act of creating life.   As she says, “they’re characters.”  But they could also be shrouds, or theatrical backdrops, or they could be curtains hiding something essential but mysterious. There is an exciting ambiguity to these pieces that keeps them from being facile, easy to understand exercises in tactile media.  Instead, they seem like what they are: a flash of insight during a long journey........  

The current body of work will be shown in a solo exhibition at the Sigmund Freud

University, Vienna from 7^th - 28th May '08 and then in a joint exhibition with sculptor

Thomas Holzer, Klaus Lea Galerie, Munich, 4^th - 24th June '08.

The artist currently lives and works in Mumbai.