Priti Kahar
Every closed eye is not sleeping and every open aye is not seeing
Painted fiber, thread, wood, canvas.
Variable size
2010
PRITI KAHAR
Born 1979 in Baroda, Gujarat, India..
Shadows are an inevitable part of this existence, the other side of the reality,co-existing all the time with every living and nonliving beings, having no character of its own, yet very intensely attached to everything. There is an attempt to depict an altered reality to shadows I create, in order to give the illusion of spatial depth and perspective, and using the shadows as an important element of my work, I allow them to be the subject of the art. My completed artwork is therefore comprised of both; the material and the immaterial (Objects and shadows) by shifting the visual experience into the cerebral construct. Most of the times, the text, objects, shadows and their deceptive features, carrying perplexing space within, becomes an area of my interest.
Text enhances the meaning of the art work, since the use of text, written or verbal, has been a significant feature in my work; I combine both text and shadows together creating an equivocal exterior. Text is used in multiple ways: as narrative, as instruction, as statement, as sculpture, in literary and poetic forms, as recorded speech, and as the matter or object of the artwork itself.
This existence is changing moment to moment, appearing very illusive at times. What appears at once disappears in the next moment. Everything around seems connected to each other, and yet remains aloof in reality, both at the existential as well as human level. Phenomena of ‘change’ are predominantly present in human psyche, as an inevitable part of consciousness, an interwoven reality of the self. If ‘reality’ is really just an experience in our minds, then illusions may suggest what we perceive, and what is real, are two different ‘realities’ and can never be the same.
The relationship between an experience of objects and its reality, and the attribution of its meaning with the sensory origins of representation, are also the areas I like working in. Media and materials are often affected by ideas I want to express, about my experiences, the freedom and immediacy in choosing material is fun. The process of creating a work of art results in to a vigilant investigation of physical and mental experiences getting transformed, into a concrete reality.
Repetitive visual elements achieve a specific effect. In most of my works, I have placed objects repetitively in different arrangements, along with inscribed text printed as shadows, transmitting or shifting the very corporeal reality of an object, by replacing diverse perspective or diverse meaning (in form of a text as shadow), resulting as a silent dialogue, expressing reality from an altered perspective.
The choice of text also keeps changing in my works, the format of text is always carefully considered with relation to the content of the series (and the objects). such as some of the works has text reference from theoretical sources, public spaces, books, spoken dialogues, aesthetics, philosophy, literature etc. and some of the other works has very random text such as verbs and nouns. In which I juxtaposed both texts and objects, by creating assorted perceptions, getting merged with the qualities of each material to arrive at meaningful form.
Courtesy of Preeti Kahar, Roy Thomas