| Topographies of Identity |
My artwork is a palimpsest of places, experience and memory. By the juxtaposition of lines, shapes and color I explore degrees of transparency. Transparency, for me, means a simultaneous perception of different spatial locations - space expands and collapses in a continuous activity. The conception of transparency as a physical quality of a substance and meaning perfectly clear, instead, becomes clearly ambiguous. My work explores this perception of fluid space as a means of understanding the shifting threshold of my identity in flux.
I have been fascinated with glass and particularly the shapes of the common factory-made glass bottles, tubes, slides and objects. I began this journey by painting lines on glass surfaces, using the density and the thickness of lines to explore transparency. Slowly the lines became contour lines - topographical 'place-maps' in my memory. My training as an architect had taught me to represent three-dimensional ideas on flat surfaces. However, my glass bottles and blocks transfer the two-dimensional topographic maps onto a three-dimensional form pulling the eye into and through the space flowing in-between.
At this same time I was writing in my journal about 'new' experiences and making sense of them with the 'familiar'. In many ways this process of layering the new onto the familiar or vice versa has been my state of mind for the last twenty years. Movement over great distances - whether abrupt or planned - away from the familiar, layered with a nebulous understanding of the 'new', is for me, a slow process and reveals as much about me as the new place or experience. With my feet firmly planted in two continents - am I the mythological Hindu character Trishanku, who hangs between Heaven and Earth - and yet, belongs to neither?
Soon the contour painted bottles evolved into "Bottle People", recognizing the figurative imagery of the bottle. It was a bricolage of recycled, forsaken and found objects with traces of places, experience and memory. With an underlying message of restoration and reinterpretation, my renditions attempt to layer the found onto the new. Here too, the contour lines painted on the glass surfaces represent places once seen, traveled and now forgotten.
My training in stained glass gave me the understanding of assembling shapes and colors to a predetermined design. I also learned the importance of external, non-glass elements that hold the pieces together (copper tape, flux and solder). Recently, I have been working with fused glass, which (by changing its form from solid to liquid and back to solid again) blends different colors and shapes into a new overlapping composition. Could the combination of all the above explorations, help to define a plural and multi-layered identity?
In my latest work, I explore exactly that. The shadow boxes are memory-maps of events and places. In these assemblages, I have attempted to use the ideas of overlapping and juxtaposing to define my layered identity. The layering of contour lines, transparent forms filled with colored shards of glass and the compositions of fused glass highlight the ambiguous in-between. By exploring the threshold between remembered and present, new and familiar - I am devising ways of coming to terms with their evident simultaneity; and the struggle ranges from a transitory moment of coexistence to lengthy chaotic shifting.
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| Resume |
EDUCATION:
1996: Masters of Science in Architecture Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
1993: Bachelors Degree in Architecture (B.Arch.), School of Architecture, CEPT, Ahmedabad, India
CURRENT AND PAST SHOWS:
Jan 24-March 21, 2010: Eight Counties, Collections & Community Galleries, John Michael Kohler Art Center, 608 New York Avenue, Sheboygan, WI 53081
January 15-Feb 14, 2010: Art by Architects, BYOStudio, 2246 S. Kinnickinnic Ave., Milwaukee, WI 53207
Dec. 10, 2009-Jan. 28, 2010: Group Show - Big, Bold & Beautiful, Creative Expressions Art Gallery, 11412 N. Port Washington Rd., Mequon, WI 53092
September 2009: Solo Artist: Westside Artwalk, Deja vu Consignments, Fine furniture, Antiques & Collectibles, 4315 W. Vliet Street, Milwaukee WI
June 20-July 11, 2009: Group Show: (Re)cycle (Re)visit, Riverwest Artists Association, Jazz Gallery, 926 Center St., Milwaukee WI
May 6-June 6, 2009: Group Show - West Allis Art Alliance, Wisconsin Regional Artists Association, UW Madison WI
April 2009: First Annual Mequon-Theineville Spring Artisan Fair, Logemann Community Center, 6100 W. Mequon Rd., Mequon, WI 53092
April 2009: Spring Artisan Fair, Le Club, 2001 W. Good Hope Rd. Milwaukee, WI
WORK EXPERIENCE:
2007-present: Established Studio in+between, www.studioinbetween.com
Fall 2006-Fall 2009: Design Studio, School of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI.
Fall 2004-Spring 2006: Common Freshmen Year Design Studio, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA.
1998-2001: Architect, KPS Group Architects, Inc., Atlanta, GA.
1996-1998: Intern Architect, Diedrich Architects & Associates, Inc., Atlanta, GA.
1996: Intern Architect, bA Design Build Inc., Atlanta, GA.
1996: Intern Architect, V. J. Associates, Atlanta, GA.
1993-1994: Project Manager and Assistant Architect, Phatak Consultants, Yavatmal, India.
1991: Design Assistant, Rolf Keller Architects, Zurich, Switzerland.
1990: Intern Architect, Manoj Patel & Associates, Baroda, India.
AWARDS:
June 6, 2009: Honorable Mention, Group Show - West Allis Art Alliance, Wisconsin Regional Artists Association, UW Madison WI
1994: Merit Endowment Scholarship for Higher Studies in the United States, Raunak Foundation, New Delhi, India
1994: Endowment Scholarship for Higher Studies in the United States, J. N. Tata Merit Scholarship Foundation, Bombay, India
1994-96: Fellowship for the duration of Graduate Studies in Architecture at MIT, Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA
1991: Student Exchange Program Design Studio- ETH Zurich, Switzerland
GRANTS:
1996: Traveling studio grant for design project in Essaouira, Morocco, Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA
1995: Traveling studio grant for design projects in Samarqand and Bukhara, Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA
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