Shambhavi Singh "Lullaby"
Talwar Gallery
This event has ended.
Scores of tiny feet, some at rest, others poised for motion, glow quietly against the smoky blue-blackness of a nebulous landscape. Migrant Laborers, as this work is called, forms the starting point for a new body of work on view, which focuses on the uneasy tumult characterizing human experience today. This sentiment is staggeringly conveyed in a nine-panel painting, Ghatak, where winking stars and dust clouds simultaneously promise hope and re-birth while hinting at the danger lurking in the unknown.
Other works concern the plight of peasants and laborers from the artist's homeland in Bihar. In Lullaby, a simple palm-leaf fan is magnified and concretized, alluding to its value in soothing the weary peasant traveler on hot, dusty journeys. The monumentalization of a crude-metal sieve, however, maintains darker connotations. The object, while representing a means of survival and livelihood, also bears the brunt of countless memories and the endless yearning for another place, home. Titled Braille, it entices the viewer to trace the rough mounds of jagged metal, their rippling shadows creating an alluring illusion of softness where actual touch would sting
This exhibition represents a new dimension in Shambhavi's quest for self-exploration. Her introspective journey continues to employ motifs associated with travel, although she extends her oeuvre here to three-dimensional works, which are permeated with an implicitly Gandhian rhetoric. Shambhavi likens Gandhi to a mother, the traditional embodiment of love, whose mere touch calms and lulls a child to peaceful sleep. The wisdom of Gandhi's words are, to those seeking solace, like a gentle lullaby, quelling the turmoil within.
Shambhavi Singh was born in Patna, Bihar. Her works have been exhibited in India, South Africa, New York and the Netherlands, where she was associated with the Foundation of Indian Arts, Amsterdam. She received her Bachelors of Fine Arts in Painting at the College of Fine Arts and Crafts, Patna (1986) and Masters of Fine Arts in Painting from the College of Arts, New Delhi, in 1992. In 2001 Singh was Artist in residence at Greatmore Studios, Cape Town, South Africa.
Media
Schedule
from March 29, 2008 to June 14, 2008