Artup 3.0
The beginning of a promising journey. The story of ‘Kadhai Krishna’.
October 2017 — An eye opener
It was the second of October 2017 - Gandhi Jayanthi and I had chanced upon the idea of using cotton thread instead of paints. I tried placing the threads on a mild steel bowl greased with fevicol. But the adhesive made the laying of thread messy since my hands would get sticky.
I made explorations on A3 size chart paper instead. The results were promising and I was liking the abstraction that was forced as a result of the unwieldy thread. But it was tiring after two hours of sitting and continuously laying thread.
I grew ambitious and ventured into making a bigger work on a 4 ft x 3 ft cloth. This was painful as no amount of thread seemed sufficient to cover the area. My mistake was that I was trying to use the thread as paint.
At times I was overdoing the laying of thread which made the final output shitty. I would have to revert by undoing the layers carefully.
Explorations in object drawing were largely unsatisfactory. This loose thread medium was more suited for abstract expression.
I stuck to abstract themes and found them to be more satisfying.
The next challenge was to frame the works for display. I tried placing them on paper and khaadi cloth but the thread would flatten once the glass was mounted on top. I wanted the thread to be alive and breathing.
A friend was of the view that the artworks needed infinite space around them. They had to be floating in free space. Their impact was limited once they were restricted to a frame.
November 2017 Solving the framing problem
Earlier I wanted the viewer to become a part of the work by having his reflection in the background. I tried experimenting with shards of mirrors picked from a local carpenter. I realized that flat mirrors were boring. I had to use concave or convex mirrors.
The first thing you realize when you have an idea is that someone has already used it and excelled at it already. In this case it was Anish Kapoor who experimented with concave and convex mirrors in 2006 and exploited it to the fullest. Nevertheless I still searched for concave mirrors on Amazon but could not find any for the size that I desired. Amazon nonetheless served me ‘Kadhais’. This was close to what I had begun with initially.
Now I was venturing into Subodh Gupta’s space but heck who cares. I felt the soft curved surface provided the infinite space for my work to sit in. I drove to the city market and bought a wok and a flat kadhai to try out.
December 2017 The birth of ‘Kadhai Krishna’
I intended to hold the thread in place by using clear epoxy resin. My conscience says I should use eco-friendly material. So I will be experimenting with earthen tawa and natural wax as well. I will also be trying out copper wire instead of thread.
My current aim is to complete two works per month and showcase it to galleries and gauge their response. For now I am content with where I have reached in 6 months.
