Hema Upadhyay
06 Dec 2008 - 03 Jan 2009
© Hema Upadhyay
Yours Sincerely -6, 2008
Acrylic, dry pastel, gouache and photograph on paper
74" x 92"
Yours Sincerely -6, 2008
Acrylic, dry pastel, gouache and photograph on paper
74" x 92"
HEMA UPADHYAY
"Yours Sincerely"
new paintings and sculpture
December 6, 2008 to January 3, 2009
Nature Morte is pleased to present new works by the Mumbai-based artist Hema Upadhyay. The exhibition is entitled "Yours Sincerely," as are all of the works, and the artist's approach seems to incorporate both honesty and sarcasm. Continuing with her trademark style of inserting photographic self-portraits into painted backgrounds, Hema pictures herself in multiple forms, moving through a densely decorative field that may signify traditional Indian culture or the megalopolis of Mumbai. Portents of doom intrude onto these beautiful scenographies in the forms of disfigured mannequins (often in piles) and dark clouds which stain and disfigure the pleasing colors. All the while, the artist is present as silent observer, puppeteer, helpless victim, or omnipotent seer.
The centerpiece of the exhibition, in our downstairs gallery, is a large sculptural model of a decidedly down-market urban scenario. Hema's metropolitan tableaux is both innocent and ominous, playful and threatening. Through the materials she uses she equates consumerist waste with urban planning (or lack thereof) and manipulates scale to imply a psychological tension as well as a personal detachment from life.
Hema Upadhyay was born in Baroda, Gujarat in 1972 and studied both painting and printmaking in the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University there. She has held solo exhibitions of her work at Mumbai's Chemould Gallery, the Tyler Print Institute and Bodhi Art in Singapore, Grosvernor Vadhera Gallery in London, Art Space in Sydney and the Instiute of Modern Art in Brisbane. She has been in most of the international museum exhibitions of Indian contemporary art that have been organized in the past decade and her work is currently included in "Chalo! India" at the Mori Museum in Tokyo and the major survey of one hundred years of Indian art at the IVAM in Valencia, Spain.
"Yours Sincerely"
new paintings and sculpture
December 6, 2008 to January 3, 2009
Nature Morte is pleased to present new works by the Mumbai-based artist Hema Upadhyay. The exhibition is entitled "Yours Sincerely," as are all of the works, and the artist's approach seems to incorporate both honesty and sarcasm. Continuing with her trademark style of inserting photographic self-portraits into painted backgrounds, Hema pictures herself in multiple forms, moving through a densely decorative field that may signify traditional Indian culture or the megalopolis of Mumbai. Portents of doom intrude onto these beautiful scenographies in the forms of disfigured mannequins (often in piles) and dark clouds which stain and disfigure the pleasing colors. All the while, the artist is present as silent observer, puppeteer, helpless victim, or omnipotent seer.
The centerpiece of the exhibition, in our downstairs gallery, is a large sculptural model of a decidedly down-market urban scenario. Hema's metropolitan tableaux is both innocent and ominous, playful and threatening. Through the materials she uses she equates consumerist waste with urban planning (or lack thereof) and manipulates scale to imply a psychological tension as well as a personal detachment from life.
Hema Upadhyay was born in Baroda, Gujarat in 1972 and studied both painting and printmaking in the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University there. She has held solo exhibitions of her work at Mumbai's Chemould Gallery, the Tyler Print Institute and Bodhi Art in Singapore, Grosvernor Vadhera Gallery in London, Art Space in Sydney and the Instiute of Modern Art in Brisbane. She has been in most of the international museum exhibitions of Indian contemporary art that have been organized in the past decade and her work is currently included in "Chalo! India" at the Mori Museum in Tokyo and the major survey of one hundred years of Indian art at the IVAM in Valencia, Spain.