Bird - Study
This new window of sculptural works are simultaneously studies in colour, pattern, and figuration. They also mark the beginning of Soi’s working with a Khatambandhi craftsman; Khatambandh is a craft in which ceilings are panelled with wooden patterns. Tesselation, the art of making shapes fit to repeat in a pattern, runs in the craftsman's blood.
Each block of Kashmiri fir is 30 cm in height and 3 inches thick, the thickest that can be cut by hand. The sandpapered face of the block is then coated with a mixture of powdered chalk mixed with clay from the river Jhelum that cuts through the city of Srinagar. The surface is smoothened by rubbing it with a flattened stone and then layered over with tissue paper sealed with saresh, a local glue used by craftsmen. This creates a rich, absorptive surface to paint upon. The colours are painted on in gouache and sealed with matt UV varnish—the details in their making that allows for the traces of the hand to reflect.
Soi toured Ladakh in 2023 and was influenced by its Buddhist iconography, including its tantric imagery. This exposure impacted his use of colour and thus these sculptural works are also colour-tests in which he experiments with the use of complementary colours. The bird, manifested by the individual wooden birch shapes coming together, seems to be radiating energy generated by the intense colour-shifts. In essence, the colouring is minimal and utilises colour-theory: yellow is darkened using purple, red is darkened using green, and orange by blue. Carefully adding a colour with its complement incrementally, a vignette is created. This is also an extension of the use of optical effects within his work in the articulation of a narrative that explores modes of representation.
This new sculptural body also underlines Soi’s research into movements and artists whose works made bridges with craft traditions. In Bengal, the work of K.G. Subramanyan comes to mind. In the United Kingdom, the Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries is of importance to him. According to Soi, there is a social contract that ties figuration to pattern, and these new works are an articulation of such thinking.
