Experimenter presents If the Seas Catch Fire, Sakshi Gupta’s debut solo at Experimenter Colaba and her first solo in Mumbai. Gupta’s practice centres the disconnect one experiences with oneself and the turmoil this creates, bringing to the fore the constant drone of an acute background suffering. The works in this exhibition, all ambitious sculptures made from reclaimed industrial metal, rummaged concrete and stoneware, emerge from experiencing incessant cycles of numerous beginnings and ends occurring simultaneously, which fosters a desire to see beyond the literal.
The difficulty in making sense of the human condition is translated visually through varied analogies; a chaotic, suffocating headspace is likened to a large-scale chicken coop, whilst an overwhelmed state of mind takes the shape of a ruffled carpet. The crosses between banal inanimate objects and animal-human-plant lives seen in the works arise from a desperate need to blur these rigid confines and experience the self in a larger context, outside of these demarcations.
Absolute wreckage and beauty are often juxtaposed, and life is experienced in its splendour, dread and the interstices in-between. One notices a pattern of waves of certainty and passion crashing onto the shore of assuredness and receding back into nothingness.
Grappling with an existential struggle can seem irrational, grotesque, pathetic and simultaneously seductive, poetic and even comical – all at once. Amidst this, a search for peace and reconciliation ensue, closely followed by the realisation of the desperate need for the love that is central to our being, our existence, the one that is lost between the layers of truth and untruth.
Sakshi Gupta (b. 1979) received her Master's in Fine Arts (Sculpture) from College of Art, New Delhi in 2004. Gupta's select solo exhibitions include 'I Marvel at Your Forgetfulness', Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna (2017); 'At the Still Point of the Turning World,' GALLERYSKE, New Delhi (2015); Recent Works, Tilton Gallery, New York (2013); Selected group shows include 'Visions from India', Columbus (2017); 'In the Depths of Our Crater Lake, All is Silent', Beirut (2015); 'Passage to India,' Staatliches Museum Schwerin, Schwerin (2015); 'Shadow Lines,' Biennale Jogja XI, Jogja, (2011); 'Homespun,' Devi Art Foundation, Delhi (2011) and 'Paris-Delhi-Bombay,' Centre Pompidou, Paris (2011). Gupta’s immersive installation for British Council’s new HQ in London was commissioned after her virtual residency (2020). She was the recipient of the Visiting Artist Fellowship, Harvard University (2019), the Illy Sustain Award (2011), the Civitella Ranieri Fellowship (2011/2012) and the Inlaks International Scholarship (2007). Gupta lives and works in Mumbai, India.
