Medium: Balsa Wood, Radiograph on Paper
Dimension: 22 x 30 in
Year: 2024
About the artwork (Artist Notes)
American Historian Lewis Mumford, in ‘The cultures of Cities’, says “The mind takes form in the city and in turn the urban form conditions mind . The city thereby constructs multiple urban narratives that constantly overlap, intertwine and contradict.” Drawing references from these narratives, my attempt is to document the slow transitioning fabric of our urban landscape.
The recent set of works is a series of collages featuring Balsa wood and Isograph pen on Paper. Thin strips of wood are sliced and built into a veil like structure. Layers of balsa are interlaced into the drawing, creating linear yet three dimensional landscapes. I got interested in shifting layered environments and materials during my residency at Gasworks in 2019 where I looked into the architectural history of London. I was fascinated by the various physical materials that layered the eclectic fabric of the city. Over the period of time, the material requirements changed and the experience of the city changed and what we see today is a disruptive prose of stone, timber, bricks existing within the bling of the reflecting glass facades.
The current set of works draw references from urban situations, such as abandoned lived spaces that stand shielded with a tarp, tottering piles of ripped homes that lay on a vacant plot or towering scaffoldings holding on to the structures until they are instructed to reveal. A veil/ a mask / a screen / a facade - all of it conceals the true print of the landscape as it slowly morphs underneath.
About the artist
Born in 1979, Dehradun, India, Niyeti Chadha completed her Bachelor’s degree in printmaking from Chandigarh College of Art and Master’s degree in the same from M.S. University, Baroda.
Niyeti is the recipient of Scholarships at the Gasworks International Studio Residency, London, supported by the Charles Wallace India Trust and The Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation, Printmaking Scholarship at the Manhattan Graphics Centre, New York , INLAKS Fine Art Award and Junior Research Fellowship granted by University Grants Commission, India.
Her work has been included in various national and international exhibitions, the recent being Planetary Scale, Curated by Jasone Miranda Bilbao, Gallery Filet, London, India Hub, Artissima, Italy 2021, ‘Traversing the Noosphere’, Gallery Latitude 28, New Delhi. The New Minimalists - Abron Arts Center, NY, Weaving Shards - Gallery Latitude 28, Drawing Notes - Studio X, Mumbai, ‘Script for a landscape’- a site specific work at the Queens Museum of Art, NY, Residue- Curated by Premjish Achari, Anant Art Gallery and Small Art is Beautiful- Curated by Fabrice Bousteau, Beirut.
