Architectures of Momentum
May 31–June 15, 2024
Vadehra Art Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of recent works by Indian post-modernist painter and sculptor Rameshwar Broota—the artist’s first solo show in London—at FRIEZE No.9 Cork Street, London, UK, from May 31 to June 15, 2024.
Architectures of Momentum features a suite of recent paintings by Rameshwar Broota, who in his revelatory period of abstraction is drawn to exploring an inner journey of the human condition, centring his explorations around perception, prophecy and self-awareness. In his paintings, Broota follows a steady process of application and erasure—foregrounding darker colours and carving squiggles, scratches, cracks and graffiti, and transforming the “surface texture” into an “organic structure” with expressive variations in dimension and tone. His quintessentially laborious means of layering paint and scraping the surface with a blade leads to patterns and images emerging serendipitously in his compositions, as if illuminated with a cosmic charm, often annotating a world impacted by man’s earthly interventions through the ages, in chaotic interpretations of time, technology and nature. The practice and conscientiousness of the artist are steeped in an exploration of the fractures and friction of change and development that remain political in the real world, philosophical in celestial realms and characteristically concurrent.
In the accompanied viewing room at FRIEZE No. 9 Cork Street, Vadehra Art Gallery will also exhibit works by three exciting South Asian women artists, including photographs by Ashfika Rahman (Bangladesh), paintings by Joya Mukerjee Logue (India/United States) and drawings by Jasmine Nilani Joseph (Sri Lanka).
An e-catalogue with more information on the exhibition, artworks and artists is available on request. For all inquiries, please write to art [at] vadehraart.com.
About the artist
Born in 1941 in New Delhi, Rameshwar Broota is one of the most important artists from his generation of post-modernists. He completed a degree in fine arts from the Delhi College of Art. Since 1967, he has served as the head of department at Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi. Broota held an important retrospective at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in New Delhi in 2014–15. His work is included in many prestigious collections, including the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi; the Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi; Lalit Kala Akademi, India; the Josip Broz Tito Museum, Yugoslavia; Kunst Museum, Dusseldorf; the Chester and Davida Herwitz Collection; the Peabody Essex Museum, USA; and the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi and Noida. Over the course of his career, Broota has received several awards and honours, including the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Lalit Arpan Festival, New Delhi, in 2013; the Kala Vibhushan by the All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society, New Delhi, in 1997; the National Award by the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, in 1980, 1981 and 1984; and the Hyderabad Award for Graphics in 1976. He also received the senior fellowship of the Government of India for the years 1987 and 1988. The artist lives and works in New Delhi, India.
About the gallery
Representing a roster of artists across four generations, Vadehra Art Gallery was established in 1987 with a passion to pioneer South Asian art around the world. Vadehra Art Gallery’s active and comprehensive programming takes the form of carefully curated and frequent exhibitions at two prominent locations in Delhi, alongside art events, engaging conversations and a growing digital platform. With a maturing global presence, the gallery continues to present curated projects at prestigious art fairs and institutional venues around the world. The gallery ventured into publishing in 1996, in addition to contemporaneously producing literature on ongoing exhibitions and artist projects.
