Solo Show Exhibition

Timing

: 10:00 onwards.

Start Date

: December 12, 2008

End Date

: January 25, 2009

Category

: Solo

Artist

: Reena Saini Kallat

Venue

: Gallery Chemould

City

: Mumbai, Maharashtra  [India]

Gallery Chemould is conducting Silt of Season, as the show title suggests, reflect a wide range of subjects. And artist Reena Saini Kallat's recurrent thematic engagements and interests - politics, evolutions in human conditions, notions of loss, territory and border take shape in varied media like sculpture, photography, painting and video. Historical and contemporary narratives come to the fore. For instance, the politics of friction and struggle of India with its neighbour Pakistan finds a presence in her pieces.

Learn more about: Reena Saini Kallat

Reena Saini Kallat (born 1973) is an artist based in Mumbai, India. Kallat was born in Dehli. She works in photography, sculpture, installation and painting. Her work often brings the intimate imagery of and objects associated with - the human body into the expanse of the public and political arena.

Kallat is married to fellow artist Jitish Kallat. Reena Saini Kallat's show titled Silt of Seasons opened at Chemould Prescott Road on the 18th. It is a mix of previously exhibited and new works. In the latter group is a series concerned with the making of Mughal monuments, in particular the Taj Mahal. The artisans who worked on Mughal commissions frequently left emblems of their guilds on walls and flagstones. Reena has embossed these marks -- little fish, swastikas and the like -- on rubber stamps. The stamps make flat, wall-mounted panels, on which she has painted floral motifs reminiscent of the pietra dura decorations on the walls of the Taj.

The best way to pay tribute to the artisans who decorated Mughal tombs would be to mirror some of their technical virtuosity. I realise it isn't easy to paint on rubber stamps, but surely part of an artist's job when s/he chooses an unusual medium is to master it. Reena has been working with stamps for a while now, and the images she has produced simply aren't as engaging as they need to be. The net result of the clumsiness evident in works like Closet Quarries is a failure to transmit adequately the underlying concept.

Solo exhibition, Reena Saini Kallat, Silt of Season, Media, Sculpture, Photography, Painting, Contemporary art, Mughal tombs, Taj Mahal, Swastikas, Wall-mounted panels, Painted floral motifs, Paint on rubber stamps, Art show