Curatorial Essay by Amelia Abdullahsani
Like a plant growing from seed to fruition, Nandita Mukand’s paintings have grown from two-dimensional abstract paintings to three-dimensional forms mushrooming of myriad media. Like a city burgeoning from village to metropolis, her paintings have developed from individual paintings into a body of work with its own pulse. Like any organism or metropolis, her paintings have materialised into its own singularity yet could form collectively.
Forest Weft, City Warp stems from Nandita Mukand’s practice of abstract painting, the weft of which she has warped into a medium of her own invention. Having worked on this new series of three-dimensional paintings, which started life as two-dimensional paintings, Nandita has primed and pruned them using every day materials such as fabric, wax, thread, paint, wool, rope, resin, and plastic. Simultaneously adding and subtracting the materials while contorting the structure of the canvas, Nandita re-invents not just a new body of work but also a new language with which to speak with and about nature.
In exploring the poetics of space in the three-dimensional paintings, the form of Nandita’s paintings have evolved in terms of space and structure. First removing the stretcher of the canvas, this allows the warps – the vertical threads of the canvas – and the wefts – the horizontal threads of the canvas to shift. In doing so, canvas creates a three-dimensional quality.
Inspired by nature, these new works explore themes of connection and spirituality within an urban context. Nandita utilises a variety of materials including cloth, the interwoven threads of which signifies how urban life today is intertwined and connected through myriad means. Though most of us live in cities, we must remember that we are still connected to nature. Being urban dwellers building and living our castles in the sky, we have become increasing physically and psychologically detached from our natural environment. Yet, the actions of a city dweller directly affect not only the rest of the city and its population but also nature. The warping of one weft creates ripples in the rest of the fabric of life. Nature affects us just as much as we affect nature.
The materiality of these objects and the medium of these works are a jump-off for this conversation. Not only do the materials of the paintings matter, the process of art-making plays an important role in this discussion of nature. The different layers are handmade laboriously using both industrial materials and found natural objects, such as leaves, branches, and twigs that she scrounges during her walks at East Coast Park. It is the combination of material and process that weaves the cosmic fabric together.
The spiritual and the profane are inalienable and cannot be separated. Nature and the city cannot be compartmentalised into disparate spaces. While they both possess very divergent characteristic, the two are not divided. In fact, they are simply parts of a whole. A celebration of nature, these paintings are also a celebration of the physical world, of which we city dwellers are part.
Forest Weft, City Warp stems from Nandita Mukand’s practice of abstract painting, the weft of which she has warped into a medium of her own invention. Having worked on this new series of three-dimensional paintings, which started life as two-dimensional paintings, Nandita has primed and pruned them using every day materials such as fabric, wax, thread, paint, wool, rope, resin, and plastic. Simultaneously adding and subtracting the materials while contorting the structure of the canvas, Nandita re-invents not just a new body of work but also a new language with which to speak with and about nature.
In exploring the poetics of space in the three-dimensional paintings, the form of Nandita’s paintings have evolved in terms of space and structure. First removing the stretcher of the canvas, this allows the warps – the vertical threads of the canvas – and the wefts – the horizontal threads of the canvas to shift. In doing so, canvas creates a three-dimensional quality.
Inspired by nature, these new works explore themes of connection and spirituality within an urban context. Nandita utilises a variety of materials including cloth, the interwoven threads of which signifies how urban life today is intertwined and connected through myriad means. Though most of us live in cities, we must remember that we are still connected to nature. Being urban dwellers building and living our castles in the sky, we have become increasing physically and psychologically detached from our natural environment. Yet, the actions of a city dweller directly affect not only the rest of the city and its population but also nature. The warping of one weft creates ripples in the rest of the fabric of life. Nature affects us just as much as we affect nature.
The materiality of these objects and the medium of these works are a jump-off for this conversation. Not only do the materials of the paintings matter, the process of art-making plays an important role in this discussion of nature. The different layers are handmade laboriously using both industrial materials and found natural objects, such as leaves, branches, and twigs that she scrounges during her walks at East Coast Park. It is the combination of material and process that weaves the cosmic fabric together.
The spiritual and the profane are inalienable and cannot be separated. Nature and the city cannot be compartmentalised into disparate spaces. While they both possess very divergent characteristic, the two are not divided. In fact, they are simply parts of a whole. A celebration of nature, these paintings are also a celebration of the physical world, of which we city dwellers are part.