Puzzles within Canvases | Verve Magazine
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April 11, 2014

Puzzles within Canvases

Text by Neha Gupta. Images courtesy Jonathan Smart Gallery and Chatterjee Lal

‘The Network: Contemporary Art From New Zealand’ is all about bizarre expressions and defined contours

  • Nathan Pohio, 'Not down on any map – True places never are', pigment-based photographic print, 2013
    Nathan Pohio, 'Not down on any map – True places never are', pigment-based photographic print, 2013
  • Rob Hood “I miss you so much”  photocollage,  2014,  350 x 210mm unframed
    Rob Hood, 'I miss you so much', photocollage, 2014
  • Yuk King Tan  “Scavenger” (still from DVD)  2009
    Yuk King Tan, 'Scavenger' (still from DVD), 2009

This on-going show brings together artists from India and New Zealand, on the grounds of sharing a British colonial history. Of course, with a shrinking world, there seems to be some a commonality in the subtext of understanding situations. While some artists may suggest humour, others draw differences between past and present, highlight social differences, see the innocence in myths and smugly draw out perceptions of the mind. Some canvases are engaging enough to immediately identify with them; others may be as bewildering as Rob Hood’s souvenir postcards. One of the latter shows a random peanut placed against a scenic backdrop. Another artist, Fiona Pardington, goes back to her roots, as if describing how alive they are in their tribal existence, a paradoxical juxtaposition of how contrasting their worlds are. The images offer the chance of a wide range of deductions based on the viewer’s perception.

‘The Network: Contemporary Art From New Zealand’ is on at Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai from April 11 to May 10, 2014. 

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