A creative touch to ubiquitous things

A woman’s undergarments, safety pins, seeds, paper, tea, wires and many more such ubiquitous materials may not immediately be considered as tools for art. But how beautifully these ubiquitous materials can respond to artists’ can be seen at group exhibit ‘Tactile.’

For instance, Sri Lankan artist Anoli Perera makes a work out of safety pins, cloth, tailor’s dummy and wire titled ‘The Shroud for a Lost Mother.’ She says life is replete with delayed actions and lamentations. “My work refers to an action or non-action with reference to lost opportunity. It references the pain, loss and the guilt that manifests as a lamentation,” says Anoli.

According to her, the safety pins, woven together for the shroud, has a close affinity with dress-making and women’s garments used as a tool for holding, tightening, loosening and fastening. It also has a potentiality for violence, a tool of defence and hidden macabre.

The exhibition features artists from the Indian sub-continent, including India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, apart from representation from Germany. Participating artists are Anoli Perera (Sri Lanka), Benitha Percival (Chennai) C Douglas  (Chennai) Manisha Gera Baswani (Delhi) Masooma Syed (Pakistan), Muhammed Zeeshan (Pakistan),  Mohammad Wahiduzzaman (Bangladesh), Shivani Aggarwal (Delhi) and Thomas and Renee Rapedius (Germany).

Pakistani artist Masooma Sayed’s sculpture ‘All the King’s Men’ and ‘Jacob’s Creek’ are inspired by and embellished with images from nature. She has used hair, panties and feathers. Masooma has created a hat out of women’s panties. They have been designed to look like crowns of the royals. It is a celebration of the hidden and the forbidden.

She says, “The two colourful pieces are embellished with images from nature. They are inspired by flowers and birds of paradise, by plants, feathers and reference to human body.”

Delhi-based artist Shivani Aggarwal’s work ‘Half Knit’ is based on the usage of threads and explore the relationship between tension and release, attachment and separation, bondage and freedom. “Threads are knit sometimes or cut to shreds. They repair at times and entangle at others. My work discovers these relationships using everyday objects and instruments.”

The webbed mass of red thread takes on the form of blood vessels as though organically and systematically formed. The resulting image seems to be of a great spilling out emphasising on some sort of loss or some sort of fullness of holding together.

The exhibition is on till November 13, at Latitude 28, Lado Sarai.