Ranbir Kaleka "Reading Man"

Bose Pacia

poster for Ranbir Kaleka "Reading Man"

This event has ended.

This exhibition marks Kaleka's much-anticipated return to gestalt painting. The artist has continued a vocabulary of figurative painting which crosses from realism into whimsical, fantastical narrative. By marrying realistic figures and passages with intense coloration and uncanny juxtapositions of objects, the artist creates contemporary tableaux of subconscious visions and fanciful dreamscapes.

In recent years Kaleka's works have explored notions of space, tactility, and temporality through a combination of video projections onto painted canvases and other surfaces. In this new body of paintings several of the works employ large-scale sculptural installation components such as mirrors, window panels, found and fabricated objects, and metal armatures. Kaleka's previous video works reflect the artist's fascination with cinema, in which canvases become animated and activated surfaces. The works featured in this exhibition continue to point to a cinematic undercurrent through the fabrication of absorptive mise-en-scène installations.

The largest work in the exhibition is a multi-canvas installation entitled Reading Man. Three canvases are stacked, one in front of the other, creating a three-dimensional painted landscape. Extending from the canvases are several sculptural components such as a clock, jacket, table, and wire figures. This combination of elements suggests a stage set that is not quite complete, and rather, remains open to further exploration. The other major works present similarly lush narrative scenes imbuing the exhibition space with the experience of walking through a fairytale.

[Image: Ranbir Kaleka "Ochre Dust in a Delusional Paradise" (2009) acrylic and oil on canvas, 102 x 54 in.]

Media

Schedule

from May 14, 2009 to June 27, 2009

Reception For The Artist on 2009-05-14 from 18:00 to 20:00
The artist will be in attendance to discuss his newest body of work which features four dynamic painting installations.

Artist(s)

Ranbir Kaleka

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