Alwar Balasubramaniam
Talwar, New Delhi is delighted to present "the space, in between." Bringing together works that explore the nature of becoming - both inside and outside, seen and unseen, focused and blurred, folded and stretched, human and divine, form and function, imagined and real.
N.N. Rimzon | A Shrine Near the Trees | 2020
Central to N.N. Rimzon’s practice is exploring the inner space, the prana, and their relationship with the universe. In Under the sky an oval life-giving form in deep blue sits at the base of the painting, with a glorious star-filled night sky above. In between, a house becomes like a body--a deep inner sanctum, creating a connection between us and the beyond. While the Divine series, of photographs by Al-An deSouza, presents ordinary views of landscapes, mirror-imaging them and completely shifting perceptions to permit renditions to miraculously enter the cultural psyche, suggesting human-made shrines and mythological figures.
In Untitled, Alwar Balasubramaniam bridges the empty space between two panels with a dust-like material seemingly held together by an invisible force. Similarly, in Between here and there he collapses the boundary between inside and outside, both visible simultaneously and allowing for a seamless transition from one to the other.
Ranjani Shettar | Kinetics | 2009 (Detail)
Kartik Sood’s work traverses liminal spaces in which solitary figures, assured and searching negotiate their belonging. Instinctual and perceptive, Sood explores the space within oneself and in relation to another in the textured painted collage series Returning Home or merge with their environment to reach beyond what is visible in the dream-like work Portal and the boatman.
In a series of drawings on folded black paper from 2011, Sheila Makhijani’s lines seem to disappear in the space between overlaps, questioning what is hidden and whether we see the entirety of the work. In contrast, in Makhijani’s monumental painting, As far as I can stretch, all is revealed; flattened and untethered, the brush strokes rush outwards from the center as an exploding galaxy.
Rummana Hussain | Eclipse | 1993 (Detail)
Function is disguised as form in Ranjani Shettar’s Kinetics. The long sinuating lines in wrought iron and their shadows create a dramatic drawing in space from objects that appear to have morphed from tools.
Cosmic transitions surface in Rummana Hussain’s Eclipse where a swirling vortex of saffron forms animate and overlap with an unruly biomorphic dark energy. In Eclipse Hussain’s premonition seems to be realized as a harbinger of dark times that follow.
Muhanned Cader’s free flowing outline of an organic form in Untitled is incised from a swath of blue, like an island nation in the open waters. Here what is removed, what is not there, dictates and overcomes the rigidity of the framed structure. Bala’s Dark Sea, a three-dimensional work that exists in synchronous relationship to the above, offers another dimension to the absence of forms, revealing the presence of what once existed.
