Sakshi Sisodia: Corner for Dreams

Over the past week Gallery One has been proud to have on display a work by Sakshi Sisodia. Sisodia's work portrays her struggles to reach out to what she feels is an enormity of bright light and life. Her paintings do not merely represent her visual experiences and emotions. They manifest an artistic fusion of her physically limited vision coupled with intensely imagined illusions.

Sakshi was born with very low vision due to albinism, and a congenital facial deformity known as cleft palate (which causes faulty speech). Together these physical challenges have led to a kind of dyslexia. But in spite of these limitations...and just because of Sisodia's grit, uncanny will power and indefatigable spirit...she completed graduation and received a Master of Visual Arts.

Sakshi completed her Bachelor of Visual Arts in 2007, going on to earn a Master of Visual Arts in Creative Painting in the year 2010...both degrees from M.S. University, Baroda. She has also worked for one year in a Post Graduate program of Museology.

The painting Corner for Dreams says a lot about Sakshi's inner vision and quiet strength.

Bhupesh Kavadia: Story Teller

Bhupesh Kavadia's sculptures often seem to resist the presumed "purity" associated with white marble. Born in 1969, Bhupesh tangles with complex social issues in his art, using unique approaches to infuse his work with meaning and subtext. As in the work above, Kavadia is known to irreverently cover his surfaces with printed text taken from news clippings and other media.

Gallery One is pleased to present a large work from the artist's series Story Teller.

As Kavadia himself explains:

This series is based on the concept of as how a narrator in a stage play comes in and around reaching the audience directly narrating some script and some storyline alongside other actors who are also performing different characters. This sort of direct contact with the audience via impactful dialogues inspired me to do this series. Hence these sculptures stand in front of the society as 'narrators' telling some or other stories of this era.

The narration starts with a poem:

Come you masters of war

You that build all the guns

You that build the death planes

You that build the big bombs

You that hide behind walls

You that hide behind desks

I just want you to know

I can see through your masks.

-Bob Dylan, from Masters of War

In this particular sculpture the narration speaks about ''Uncle Sam's War Mart'' as how in this highly civilized society the market for fatal and very destructive armaments is prepared with such a selling and marketing strategy as same as to sell a condom or a cola.

This segment of the narrative of Story Teller shows us a white profile with gold in its brain and what appears to be shrapnel piercing its skull. Sperm-like spires surround the head, suggesting hyper-masculinized pawns in a game of military chess. Story teller is speaking, like the soliloquy of a murdered man upon a darkened stage.

Gallery One is pleased to have this work on display. It is not for sale, as it has been previously sold.

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Sayed Irshad Ali: Shoe Men's Property 1 and 2

Artist Sayed Irshad Ali begins the new year at Gallery One with an installation designed to reawaken our memory and increase our awareness. Shoe Men's Property 1 and 2 refers to the countries of Iraq and Afghanistan. The political boundaries of each are created out of iron: one filled with "oil" and the other spilling mobile phone batteries out of its center...mobile phone batteries containing lithium, one of the rare minerals found in abundance in Afghanistan.

We are asked to be reminded of the rich resources of both countries: oil, gold, copper, lithium, cobalt and more, and contemplate the materialistic motives behind the invasions of these countries, and the lives lost in pursuit of wealth.

Iraq rests upon desert sands, while Afghanistan hangs on its side...the edges of its perimeter suggesting the peaks of the country's mountainous terrain.The small motorized "shoe boat" that circles aimlessly in the basin that represents Iraq refers to the shoe thrown at former US President George Bush by an Iraqi journalist. This shoe-throwing became a symbol of anger and frustration and a sense of exploitation among the Iraqi people. But the very white shoe in Shoe Men's Property symbolizes America as it circles the boundaries of its newly acquired "property".

Please view this superb video of Shoe Men's Property made by the artist...complete with the audio that accompanies the installation.

Sayed Irshad Ali talks about "Shoe Men's Property 1 and 2"

Interview conducted with the artist while Shoe Men's Property 1 and 2 was under construction in December.

Coming Soon

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A Christmas Tree at Gallery One

Beginning on Monday the 20th, Gallery One will be going through some interior re-modification for the upcoming new year.

During that time we are once again pleased to hang a work by Shankar Kumawat in our window. This painting from the artist's series Silent Nights conjures up some of the peace and tranquility associated with the Christmas season.

Wishing everyone joyous holidays, and a Happy New Year.

Gallery One will return with new artists and new installations in 2011.

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Soghra Khurasani: Brave Heart

Gallery One is pleased to present the work of Baroda-based artist Soghra Khurasani.

The installation Brave Heart is actually a combination of two works...the woodcut triptych of the same name, and a three minute video titled Do This, Do That.

In the video Khuarsani explores the idea of individual desire and freedom, and how those desires and freedoms are controlled and manipulated by forces beyond our control: government, family, religion, neighbors, friends, and loved ones. The video leaves us reflecting upon individual choice and societal obligation.

Coupled with the woodcut triptych Brave Heart, we are left to think of how this conflict between self desire and societal pressure affects our emotions. The heart is shown to be a fragile organ of veins, arteries, blood cells, and muscle. We can only hope our hearts are strong enough to make the proper choices in our day-to-day lives.

Above is the artist's video Do This, Do That...and below is a short and informal phone video made of the installation itself.