Experimenter presents By Darkling Ground, Kolkata based artist Adip Dutta’s second solo at the gallery. The exhibition opens on 17th May 2017 and will continue to be on view until 8th July, 2017.
Over the last decade, Dutta has explored possibilities in re-looking at objects and sites of construction and tools of labour, by which he has attempted to find alternate value and meaning from them. By Darkling Ground takes further this inquisition of alternate viewing through ink-works, sculptures and found objects, and brings forth a seemingly chaotic vision of his environment. Dutta however finds a certain refuge and calm in the sculptural chaos, as the ground is exposed, old structures broken and the space brought down to a primitive state revealing their skeletal forms to create scopes for new points of view come to the forefront.
Defined construction sites allow a point of entry into the exhibition. Safety nets from construction sites become motifs for sculptural objects, camouflaged organic shapes that juxtapose with defined structural elements in the show. Dutta uses steel, copper, metal wire, wood and several such materials that have deep resonance with the act of building. An archaeological site emerges where carcasses are exposed, not of creatures, but of the built environment. On one side of the gallery, a sculptural object is installed high on the wall in a corner, like a sea urchin, but upon closer examination is a safety net. Large intricate ink paintings on paper have layers of texture and elements embedded within them, and provide an insight into the deep introspective nature of Dutta’s observation of his surroundings. A meditative repetition of fine lines and forms take foreground in these works that are deeply strenuous to make and in turn add to Dutta’s even closer examination of these spaces.
A linear sculpture runs in another part of the gallery, simulating the motif of a boxed building under construction, whose ceilings are propped up by numerous wooden supports as scene in local construction sites. The wooden supports are expressed like a cluster of trees in woods than the site of an ongoing construction. An aura of fantasy can be sensed in all the works in the show, where reality is blurred, and a fuzzy sense of the imagination takes over.
By Darkling Ground reclaims a certain space that is constantly transforming in the eyes of Dutta. The spatial, material and formal elements and the disruptive excavation of these spaces is the crucial fulcrum upon which the exhibition finds a balance. At the same time, a primitive exploration of material and an anthropological study of form, coupled with fantastical imagination of these sites provides an indistinct yet precisely close insight into the ways and processes of Dutta’s mind.
Adip Dutta is a Master of Visual Arts (MVA), Department of Sculpture, Faculty of Visual Arts, Rabindra Bharati University (2000) and is currently a member of the Faculty of Visual Arts at the same. Dutta’s works have been shown in several group and solo exhibitions around the world, his recent solos being at Selma Ferani Gallery, London, 2013; Experimenter, Kolkata, August, 2011; MAN/NAM, Aicon Gallery, London, April 2007. Dutta’s recent Group participations include Land of No Horizon, Nature Morte, New Delhi, May 2014; Urban Narratives, curated by Nanak Ganguly, Espace Louis Vuitton, Tokyo, 2013.
