Enter the void | Gallery Dotwalk's 'The Architecture of the Void'
A new exhibition at Delhi's Gallery Dotwalk featuring works on paper explores ideas of identity and history
When Gallery Dotwalk relocated to Defence Colony from Gurugram earlier this year, founder-director Sreejith N. found himself asking a simple question—how does one begin again, in a different room, without forgetting the histories that brought one here? The answer was found in their second exhibition, The Architecture of the Void: Lines on a Postcolonial Skeleton, which brings together an exceptional group of modern Indian artists, focusing on drawings, watercolours, etchings and works on paper, foregrounding a medium that was central to artistic experimentation in the decades following Independence and Partition.
When Gallery Dotwalk relocated to Defence Colony from Gurugram earlier this year, founder-director Sreejith N. found himself asking a simple question—how does one begin again, in a different room, without forgetting the histories that brought one here? The answer was found in their second exhibition, The Architecture of the Void: Lines on a Postcolonial Skeleton, which brings together an exceptional group of modern Indian artists, focusing on drawings, watercolours, etchings and works on paper, foregrounding a medium that was central to artistic experimentation in the decades following Independence and Partition.
Reflecting on the title of the exhibition, Sreejith says, “The works in the exhibition are built through lines—assertive, wounded, broken, mythical—that not just describe the form, but also actively construct space, memory and belonging. The void here talks about the uncertainty and the struggles that shaped the postcolonial moment. So, in a way, the title reflects the tension between the fragility and the memory, the surface and what is withheld,” he says.
With its focus on paper, Sreejith believes that the exhibition invites the visitor to read paper itself as an active decision. “It prompts the audience to think about these questions: What does it mean for a newly decolonised nation to draw itself onto something that can crease, buckle, even tear? What kinds of worlds appear when we pay attention to the smallest mark, the faintest hesitation of the hand?” he says.
The show brings together a rare constellation of artists whose works are not often seen together. “The architectural and anatomical rigour of Progressive Artists’ Group founder Sadanand K. Bakre and the uncompromising ink of F.N. Souza anchors one end of the spectrum, where cities, bodies and faith are drawn as if under pressure. Nearby, Somnath Hore, Jogen Chowdhury and Badri Narayan attend to the body as a site of wound, vulnerability and quiet resilience, lines that cut, cross-hatch and, at times, soothe,” shares Sreejith. The exhibition also showcases works by artists such as Bireswar Sen, G.R. Santosh, J. Swaminathan, Ram Kumar, Bhupen Khakhar and Meera Mukherjee, among others.
—The exhibition is on till May 30
