An interactive digital edition of Abu Dhabi Art will bring together galleries and artists from across the world in a number of curated gallery exhibitions and sectors. In this edition of Abu Dhabi Art, 1X1 presents a group show of works by Chittrovanu Mazumdar, Ghulam Mohammed, Madhusudhanan, Rina Banerjee, Saliima Hashmi & Wardha Shabbir.
In her practice Rina Banerjee challenges current nativist political leanings by proposing a multi-faceted nature of identity; not based exclusively on a person’s culture of origin or gender, but instead on self-identity. These inclusive and freeing conceptions of the “self” manifest themselves throughout Banerjee’s ever-evolving work – in fragmented figures, riotous use of color, and symbolic materials. Paired with her thought-provoking and poetic titles, Banerjee’s works relentlessly query contemporary modes of artistic production and societal engagement.
Say’s Salima Hashmi about her practice, “As we seek to document our turbulent times, the fragile and the vulnerable weigh upon the inner eye. Remembered images of night and day spread out; carpets and tapestries mapping our journeys.”
An artist with a truly international sensibility, Chittrovanu Mazumdar draws from an ever-shifting sea of eclectic sources. Dramatic plays of light and heightened colour values are visual hallmarks of his sophisticated oeuvre. Mazumdar’s imagery emerges out of daily discoveries: a word, a glance, the heartrending/blood-chilling phrase, a fleeting mise en scène...the rise and crest of body parts imprisoned in tight freeze-frame: both source and association are intensely private and sensual. In his paintings, contours of anatomy can be seen slipping into/emerging from non-representative fields of colour. Figuration gives way to a highly charged, potent movement towards abstraction.
Wardha Shabbir’s laborious rendering of countless dots coming together as units to form an idea(s) on surface is based on the “Nuqta/Dot” symbolizing infinity and life in her work. Akin to miniature paintings for manuscript illustration, she has delicately picked organic symbols of earth, water and sky to paint contemporary utopian pathways or Siraat, signifying a course of clarity in midst of a clutter of contradictory values and states of being.
In his filmic constructed images Madhusudhanan betrays his enduring fascination with early Indian cinema as historical medium, replicating film stills and figures from the silent era. Madhusudhanan insists on making series of images rather than the singular in imitation of the filmic language. This painting, which comes from memories of the myth of the historical flood closely parallels the story of creation: a cycle of creation, un-creation, and re-creation, in which the Ark plays a pivotal role. The triptych fuses together the narrative of the biblical flood and migrants all over the world in search of home.
Ghulam Mohammed’s practice places itself at the intersection of the range and limitations of language, both as a visual, formal construct as well as a conveyor of meaning. This intersection is characterized by the tension that exists between the capacities of language to both impart form as well as potential to meaning. It is this interplay between form and potential, orientation and performance that is the primary motive force behind the process of the practice as well as the work it produces.
