EXPERIMENTER GALLERY PRESENTS NESTLED BY ADIP DUTTA AND MEERA MUKHERJEE, 22 JANUARY- 31 MARCH 2021

EXPERIMENTER GALLERY PRESENTS NESTLED BY ADIP DUTTA AND MEERA MUKHERJEE, 22 JANUARY- 31 MARCH 2021

Nestled brings together the works of sculptor and painter Adip Dutta and the revered artist late Meera Mukherjee, revisiting a layered and nuanced relationship between them. Although generationally apart, Mukherjee’s influence on Dutta’s work was formative to his visual language and the exhibition attempts to underscore a lesser known, yet important, dialogue between them. Ensconced within the studio and influence of Meera Mukherjee, for Adip Dutta, the early conversations with his “Meera Mashi” birthed a way of thinking and looking that became the cornerstone of his practice. Nestled orbits a space of dialogue, of times spent together, of influences formed through a wide range of experiences, and of foundational moments of lucidity for Dutta and a loving, yet restrained, mentoring by Mukherjee.

Using the stitched kantha, as a point of entry into the exhibition, Nestled presents a body of hand-embroidered work that emerged from Mukherjee’s constant push in imbibing and expanding processes juxtaposing them with Dutta’s works on paper, sculptures and drawings. Mukherjee made drawings with children that grew into kanthas; instructed by her and made in collaboration with skilled craftspeople which then took shape of hand-woven carpets.

In Dutta’s repetitive mark-making within his drawing, the relationship between Mukherjee’s kantha stitches flexible, moving, curvilinear lines where small lines, dots, dashes and points are used as common devices to form the narrative become instantly visible.

The influence of folk art and traditional practices is fundamental in the viewing of the exhibition and so is the understanding of how Dutta and Mukherjee deploy their practices to question the politics around the movement of folk and tribal art forms to decorative, skill-based practices and to elevated ‘fine’ art. They reflect the journeys these forms make as they permeate the boundaries of each other and impact the viewing of the whole as one.

Dutta’s works are bereft of human representation, while Mukherjee’s are immersed in them, yet signs of human presence are palpable in Dutta’s works as if he attempts to capture the shadow of human action and pauses at a moment, just after a person leaves a space. Human relationship and bonds between people were central to Mukherjee’s vision that manifests in several ways in her work.

The exhibition in its physical form will be open to the public between 11 am to 6 pm every day except on Sundays and other government mandated closure dates. Visits to the gallery need prior appointments. Physical distancing and other safety measures will be followed at the gallery.

Nestled is presented by Experimenter in collaboration with The Seagull Foundation for the Arts, Kolkata.