kaleidoscope
LOOKING INTO THE WELL
Art is often capable of expressing itself without using critical
theory as a filter. One of the weaknesses of Sharmistha Rays
show, We are all islands at Nine Fish Art Gallery, Mumbai,
from the 1st of October to the 6th of November, 2016, was the
heavy reliance on theory to knit its diverse pieces together.
The first works encountered on walking into the gallery were
textured, multi-coloured canvases that evoked tactility. On
the gallery floor stood solidly hewn wooden structures that
were chiselled into asymmetrical shapes and painted in many
colours: they demanded that the viewer negotiate the space
around them. Were these the islands in the title of the show?
Bulky and relatively tall, these structures in an alienating
gesture, impeded but also mapped the gallery space; the
geometrical texturing called attention to itself as representing
the man-made and not the natural.
Along a dark corridor, rainbow-coloured, billet-like bars
leaned against the walls, emitting an eerie light. Were these
also the islands of the title? The strength of the show lay in
the questions it instigated. In Sanctum I, the artists face and
bare shoulders behind a cellphone in the ubiquitous gesture
of the selfie were framed within a faux-antique mirror. On a
shelf underneath, a row of flowers was placed like an offering
at a shrine. The viewer crossed a doorframe into another room,
where an intriguing, curvilinear work, The space that lives
between us, hung on the wall, casting a shadow, and in so doing,
intensified its own intricacy. The steel work replicated the
biometric impression of the artists thumb and immediately
24 The Art News Magazine of India May 2017 Volume XXI Issue II
Sharmistha Ray.
Sanctum II (forget you I shant).
Installation with 108 visual
projections. 2016.
Image courtesy Sharmistha Ray
Studioand Nine Fish Art Gallery.
Photograph by Anil Rane.
brought into focus the uniqueness of human identity, island-
like in its separateness. The viewer turned to find small but
powerful graphite-on-paper drawings of female nudes placed
seemingly randomly on the wall, the body usually privileged
over the face, often presented prone, sometimes supine.
Comprising a cylindrical white structure in a corner with a single
drawing from the nude series keeping vigil over it, Sanctum
II (forget you I shant) asked personal questions about sexual
identity. Drawn towards the white well, the viewer peered in to
find digitised, backlit images of the nude drawings appearing in
a sequence within its circular base. The frozen gaze of the single
image on the wall triangulated with the gaze of the viewer and
the gaze of the images projected in the well. The queries thrown
up by this installation spoke to the title We are all islands.
It was the wall text and the explanations that caused discomfort:
the information that the 108 nude drawings framed a gesture
towards Japa, the theories of post-coloniality, migration and
queerness. Was this necessary when the art spoke effectively
for itself ? Two similar photographs of the artist swimming that
were meant to (mis)represent reality were also unconvincing
links in an otherwise rich show.
We are all islands 2, a different version of the show, was also
on view from the 1st to the 30th of March at the Mill Hall
Compound, Kochi.
JAYA KANORIA