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| West Village from Visions of a Fragmented Mind, 2011, Archival Digital Print |
Bose Pacia, in collaboration with Payal Arts International, is pleased to present Transparent Hallucination with new video and photography by New Delhi and London-based artist, Siddhartha Tawadey, 8 September – 22 October, 2011. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday from 11 to 6 pm and Saturday 12 to 6. There will be an artist reception on Thursday, September 8th from 6 to 8 pm. The artist will be in attendance and the public is invited.
Siddhartha Tawadey’s Transparent Hallucinations is a two part exhibition that endeavors to engage the frenetic and psychologically dissonant mindscape of New York City. Having recently completed a residency at the School of Visual Arts, in New York, all works have been conceived and created in the city and were inspired by the artist’s navigation of its urban spaces.
In spending his summer hours, days and weeks exploring NYC, Tawadey became overcome by the stark juxtapositions of a city that seemed, to him, constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown. No single moment, however, was located entirely in a state of chaos or staid calm. As such, the artist has begun to explore these seemingly inextricable poles of a collective subconscious resulting in two distinct areas of creative engagement, each addressing a specific area of emotionality.
The video, 23.98, explores a sense of anxiety and desperation. Tawadey states that “this psychosis was expressed as metaphors in the film through emblems such as painting and scratching on film reels, quick editing of glimpses, rapid montage, use of black, layers, superimpositions, appropriated footage time lapse, flicker, black and white imagery, in-camera editing, jump cuts and use of motion and the feel of an 8mm hand-held camera.” The result is an unsettling, if absorptive, video that harkens to the psychotic imagery of Italian neo-realist filmmaker, Michelangelo Antonioni.
As with any episode of frantic mental energy, there follows an equally suffocating period of emptiness and inactivity. In Transparent Hallucination this takes the form of the photo series, Visions of a Fragmented Mind. The photographs are “pure in composition and [use] a very restricted palette of colors to keep the images subjective and honest.” Tawadey captures happenstance moments of abstracted stillness in a city that is constantly moving.
The pairing of movement and stillness in the exhibition creates a space where the viewer can independently enter into the hallucinations of this neurotic city’s collective subconscious. By paring the imagery to inanimate objects and abstracted and disjunctive narratives, the artist allows each person to explore their own “self-referential sensations, emotions and revelations” in the context of Tawadey’s New York.
Born in Kolkata, India in 1975, Siddhartha Tawadey is a video and photography artist who studied at St. Martins School of Design (London 2008) and City University (London 2009). He has participated in group and solo exhibitions internationally. His works are included in many private collections. Transparent Hallucination marks the artist’s first solo exhibition with Bose Pacia. Tawadey lives and works in New Delhi and London.
To view images please visit: http://www.bosepacia.com/exhibitions/2011-09-08_siddhartha-tawadey/installation-views
