This exhibition marks the artist’s first museum solo exhibition in India and her first exhibition in Mumbai. Over half the works exhibited here are on view for the first time in India including major new works produced in the two years before the exhibition.
Shettar's large installations draw inspiration from natural forms recalling the surreal beauty of magical creatures and sensuous landscapes. She gives imaginative form to natural phenomena as diverse and unique as the interaction of light and water, the luminescence of fireflies and the kinetic response of plants to sunlight. Evocative titles such as Heliotropes and Scent of a Sound allow us to engage with the essence of the work, which emphasize handmade and pre-industrial processes, but employ the most sophisticated technical and scientific processes in their assemblage. Celebrating both the natural and the man-made, the works recall the interface of art and science which was one of the founding ideas of the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum.
Ranjani Shettar’s works have been the subject of several museum exhibitions including solo presentations at The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Boston, MA (2008); The Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX (2008-9); The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA) (2009); National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia (2011); Hermes Fondation, Singapore (2011) and BDL Museum, Mumbai, India (2012). Her works have also been featured in exhibitions at Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), NY (2010); Kiran Nadar Museum, New Delhi (2011, 2012, 2013), 5th Moscow Biennale (2013); 10th Liverpool Biennial, UK (2010); 55th Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, PA (2008); 9th Lyon Biennial, France (2007); 8th Sharjah Biennial (2007); 15th Sydney Biennale, Australia (2006); Artpace, Texas (2006); Cartier Fondation, Paris (2005); Wexner Center, OH (2005) and The Walker Art Center, MN (2003). In 2012 in collaboration with The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York the artist created a limited-edition project, Varsha.
