I would like to invite you to my exhibition, Samadhana: When Many Become One, at The REACH @kennedycenter from 11-18 August, 2024. The exhibition will be on display in the Skylight Pavilion, and is free and open to the public.
Artist talk- 14th August at 6pm
As a Kennedy Center Culture Caucus member, I have had this wonderful opportunity to come up with different events at The REACH over a period of two years, and this exhibit is one of them. I will be showing paintings from my Samadhana and Akshara series along with a new version of the Maya installation made of hole-punched paper and mirror. The artwork will be accompanied by physicist and science writer, Michael Albrow’s poems inspired by science. The exhibition was curated by Sarah Tanguy.
Photography by Tony Ventouris Photography.
Samadhana: When Many Become One
Samadhana is a Sanskrit word that means complete concentration and mental focus. It also refers to contemplating oneness or reconciliation of various ideas. My artwork is a means to merge my multiple fascinations, layered with ideas from many different disciplines including science, philosophy and culture, to better understand the universe we inhabit.
Raised in a small cosmopolitan, scientific research community on the shores of India’s Bay of Bengal, I was surrounded by ancient art forms alongside cutting edge physics. My work reflects this juxtaposition. I find philosophy in fundamental physics and physics in the philosophies of my upbringing. This experience inspired the Samadhana series, which blends similar ideas from ancient narratives and current scientific discoveries. I couple the concepts of Time, Spacetime, Space, Energy, Fields and Information with Indian deities, using the traditional arts of Kalamkari, Tanjore-style painting and Chola sculptures.
The Samadhana theme extends to various Indian languages that are scientific in their organization. In each, separate vowel and consonant groups combine to form syllables. The Akshara paintings explore the evolution of these alphabets from an early writing system called Brahmi into seemingly different scripts depending on the environment and usage.
I also experiment with everyday materials like paper and hole-punches, resulting in site-specific installations that are meditative and sometimes playful. Maya represents the cosmos at various scales as well as our perception of reality and illusion with order and randomness coexisting. Samadhana is about understanding life beyond apparent opposites and finding interconnectedness and oneness.
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