'Grass Roots' at Noble Sage (From Asian Image)

'Grass Roots' at Noble Sage

4:01pm Thursday 9th February 2012 in Entertainment By Asian Image reporter

The Noble Sage is delighted to welcome Indian artist, Sandhya Pai, and her first London installation, ‘GRASS ROOTS’ (2012).

Born in 1982 in Karnataka, India, and a graduate of the Sir J J School of Art in Mumbai, Pai’s work for several years has explored themes such as the home ritual and the shrine-like space, the energy and visual aesthetic of the collective and the snapshot memories of our pasts as photographed by us as well as by our elders. In her past installation ‘My Father’s Third Wedding’ (2010) Pai created a shrine-like space in Maidenhead’s busy high street. She then invited viewers to move around the cluttered space and look at the many drawings of photographs of Pai’s village history in open books and boxes. The transparency and honesty of Pai’s presentation of history was deliberately alluring.

Nine days after the momentous tragedy that was 9/11, Pai created the sublime performance installation, ‘20/9 Worship’ in her ancestral village in Karnataka.

On the occasion of her father’s sixtieth birthday, and with the reaffirmation of her parents’ marital vows at that same event, Pai daringly placed large drawn images of his past throughout the space, high up, so that they were included in (if not interrupting) all audience visual participation in the rituals and celebrations.

These images often showed moments in her father’s history that interwove with the pasts of many present at the ceremony.

In this way Pai showed literally the veils of history through which we constantly view the present.

‘Grass Roots’ (2012) at The Noble Sage continues Pai’s thematic interests in congregation and group purpose coupled with ritual, memory and history. However she evolves a form first used in Kerala in 2008 with her installation ‘Landscapes and Memories’ I.

There she grew paddy grass outlines of the map of Mattancherry, FortKochi, live in the gallery. These outlines related to her walks where she viewed many different cultures of people living close together in the town.

Amongst and above these grass paths she placed drawings relating to the people and scenery she saw along the way.

In ‘Grass Roots’, Pai again looks to literally connect with the earth, this time, rather than paddy, using crushed newspaper pulp as the base for her installation.

The incorporation of this pulp is significant: it is the stuff of words and letters that together makes up our living recent history made into a paradoxically non-recognisable, non-readable, natural soil-like surface. From this ‘soil’, or as Pai describes it ‘this source’, emerge figures from Pai’s history, in back and white, like little idols of real life for us to worship in this extinguished pyre.

The images project everyday life to be holy and worthy of reverence and physical orbit.

As we circle the huge installation we invoke memories of Hindu rituals in the temple, where the planetary idols or certain deities are circled three times by devotees.

There is a religiosity in the installation that comes through in the piece.

The artist likens the energy she wants to create in this work to the dynamism of any mass social movement or any collective at a religious gathering or celebration. She sees the work as a metaphor for social transformation, inspired by her witnessing of the recent London riots and the anti-corruption movement in India.

The title, ‘Grassroots’, in this way, relates to ground level shifts, social and political as well as within the family and the community. All images in this press release show details of a demonstration example of the actual installation.

If you are interested in viewing the installation early for press intentions, please contact The Noble Sage on thenoblesage@thenoblesage.com and we would be delighted to organise this for you.

Event Details.

Sandhya Pai's 'Grass Roots' (2012) will be on view from the 17th - 26th February by appointment only. To make an appointment contact the gallery on reception@thenoblesage.com.

Private View: Friday 17th February 2012, 6-8.30pm Location details The Noble Sage Art Gallery, 2A Fortis Green, London N2 9EL (near East Finchley tube).

The Noble Sage is open by appointment only.

If you would like to view the collection, please contact the gallery on thenoblesage@thenoblesage.com or by phone on 07901944997.

The gallery is free to enter and open to all.

The Noble Sage specialises in Indian, Sri Lankan and Pakistani Contemporary Art.

www.thenoblesage.com.

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