Forest Weft, City Warp at One East Asia, Singapore

“Forest Weft, City Warp” is an exhibition showcasing Nandita’s latest body of work of three-dimensional paintings. These new works stem from her tradition of painting, the weft of which she has warped into a medium of her own invention. Using everyday materials – fabric, wax, thread, paint, wool, rope, and plastic – Nandita explores the poetics of space in the three-dimensional paintings, inspired by nature and its essential role in the built city landscape. 
This new body of work deals with nature and materiality, exploring themes of connection and spirituality within an urban context. In these sculptural paintings, on which she has been working for the past two years, 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. The actions of a city dweller directly affects not only the rest of the city and its population but also nature. 
Not only does material matter, the process of art-making plays an important role in this discussion of nature – the different layers are laboriously handmade. The forms and textures of her work are often created by moulding the material to the bones of her hand – the traces of the human body become forms resembling flowers, corals, and fungal growth. It is the combination of material and process that weaves the cosmic fabric together.