Artist and practice
About me
My world making begins with a familiar place that exists or once existed, one I can visit in my memories as much or as little as I want.
Artist
Shivangi Kalra
Painter · Delhi / The Netherlands
In this world that I create, while I daydream into my memories, I also speculate on the politics that transpire around the dinner table.
In the artist’s words
Artist statement
I am interested in exploring reality not in the way that it is perceived, but in the way that it lives on and transforms as I chew on it. Every new work is an exploration of this gap between what is and what becomes. Growing up in busy rooms of lush houses of a bygone Delhi, bringing together people eating, gossiping, violently laughing and mutedly crying; my mind started wandering, inventing (or discovering? already existing) images into the rooms that have now disappeared; and stories from a different time started to enter the scenes.
The house that I grew up in, the gardens in front of that house, Mausambi tree in the garden on the left, the railing curves cutting through the party in the living room, the living room whose windows framed shimmering dots of half twinkling stars in them, overlooking the heavy dining table that could host at least 30 people for dinner; everything comes together and starts speaking to each other.
Conversations spark up, overlap each other, and disagreements get brushed under already heavy, patterned warm dusty rugs. The loudest voice echoes the most. We witness together who serves, and who is being served while having a bigger seat and a louder voice at the table.
I wish I could manipulate time. My urgent and impossible desire to do so evidently bleeds into my practice. The memories so strong I can touch them; sing songs of melancholy in hues of bougainvillea purples and cerulean skies. These colors help me continue my constant search of ‘how’; the infinite question of the best way to express and resolve this complicated mess of the world that I live in and the world that lives in me.
Record
Selected exhibitions
Drents Museum, Solo show, The Netherlands Indigo+Madder Gallery, Group show, London Aicon Contemporary, Group show, New York Art Rotterdam, Solo show presented by Galleria Doris Ghetta Breath of fresh air, Solo show, Galleria Doris Ghetta Milan
Chabot Museum Rotterdam, Group show, When I was you Found in translation, Group show, Gallery Under the mango tree, Berlin Art Mumbai, Group shows, Gallery SKE and Method India Asia Art Fair, Group show, Paris There is no going back, Solo show, No Man’s Art Gallery, Amsterdam Arco Lisboa, Group show, Lisbon You’re growing on me, Solo show, Method India
Education
Awards and grants
Artist and practice
About me
My world making begins with a familiar place that exists or once existed, one I can visit in my memories as much or as little as I want.
Artist
Shivangi Kalra
Painter · Delhi / The Netherlands
In this world that I create, while I daydream into my memories, I also speculate on the politics that transpire around the dinner table.
In the artist’s words
Artist statement
I walk on the grass, painting it one blade at a time, and another, and another. So weird that grass has ‘blades’ while what cuts through me are the faint conversations from the living room; of whose wife is too much to handle and whose outfit is the worst tonight.
Growing up in busy rooms of lush houses of a bygone Delhi, bringing together people eating, gossiping, violently laughing and mutedly crying; my mind started wandering, inventing (or discovering? already existing) images into the rooms that have now disappeared; and stories from a different time started to enter the scenes.
What I long for, miss, question, wonder about, or even despise in this world now; starts to take shape in translucent veils of other realities. A new world starts to penetrate the reality that I know of, with a familiar air that makes me dance in the studio.
In my practice I am interested in exploring reality not in the way that it is perceived, but in the way that it lives on and transforms as I chew on it. Every new work is an exploration of this gap between what is and what becomes. The most exciting moment in the studio that makes me dance is when what I see starts to merge with how I feel about it.
My world making begins with a familiar place that exists or once existed, and one which I can visit in my memories as much or as little as I want. The Delhi house that I grew up in, the gardens in front of that house, Mausambi tree in the garden on the left, the railing curves cutting through the party in the living room, the living room whose windows framed shimmering dots of half twinkling stars in them, overlooking the heavy dining table that could host at least 30 people for dinner; everything comes together and starts speaking to each other.
In this world that I create, while I daydream into my memories, I also speculate on the politics that transpire around the dinner table. Conversations spark up, overlap each other, and disagreements get brushed under already heavy, patterned warm dusty rugs. The loudest voice echoes the most. We witness together who serves, and who is being served while having a bigger seat and a louder voice at the table.
I wish I could manipulate time. My urgent and impossible desire to do so evidently bleeds into my practice. The memories so strong I can touch them; sing songs of melancholy in hues of bougainvillea purples and cerulean skies; while I think about this one thing that my mom always told me ever since I was little. She said what matters is not just what you have got to say, but how you say it.
My practice is this constant search of ‘how’; the infinite question of the best way to express and resolve this complicated mess of the world that I live in and the world that lives in me.
Record
Selected exhibitions
Drents Museum, Solo show, The Netherlands Indigo+Madder Gallery, Group show, London Aicon Contemporary, Group show, New York Art Rotterdam, Solo show presented by Galleria Doris Ghetta Breath of fresh air, Solo show, Galleria Doris Ghetta Milan
Chabot Museum Rotterdam, Group show, When I was you Found in translation, Group show, Gallery Under the mango tree, Berlin Art Mumbai, Group shows, Gallery SKE and Method India Asia Art Fair, Group show, Paris There is no going back, Solo show, No Man’s Art Gallery, Amsterdam Arco Lisboa, Group show, Lisbon You’re growing on me, Solo show, Method India