NYAB Event - G.R. Iranna "Birth of Blindness"

G.R. Iranna "Birth of Blindness"

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On view will be two large fiberglass-based sculptural installations and a collection of paintings that explore themes of sensory and spiritual deprivation, and of physical and psychic restraint; all key elements of Iranna’s oeuvre.

The exhibition’s titular installation in the first gallery, which exemplifies Iranna’s interest in forms of deprivation and the body as a site for negotiating socio-cultural and political realities, finds a series of ten prostrate classical figures arranged in a semicircle through the gallery. Each sculpture has been blindfolded and placed atop a wooden cart. In Make Sure U Are Breathing, installed in the
second gallery, a man stands naked with a burlap bag covering where his arms and head would be. Without senses or the ability to manipulate his environment, he is left to roam aimlessly. Emphasis is placed on the figure’s vulnerability as he is unwillingly subjected to the threat and control of exterior forces.

Iranna’s paintings, rendered in acrylic on his signature tarpaulin, present lush narratives within the barest of productions, typically using a handful of figures on a monochromatic background to tell a
complex philosophic parable. A bull ominously passes a hooded matador in Afternoon Sacrifice I and II, while in There is No Border, soldiers are stripped of their uniforms and crouched behind concertina wire with their heads covered in shrouds. The imagery throughout the exhibition conjures now-iconic images such as the abused prisoners of Abu Ghraib or of politicized coverage of Muslims in prayer. However, the anonymity of the figures brings light to Iranna’s concern with the universal human condition: the artist asserts that his featureless figures are, “about acting blindly, about choosing a path without understanding the situation and its implications.”

Media

• Painting
• Sculpture

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