9 x 12 in
‘The Figure of Sound,’ a group show of eleven artists introduces an interesting provocation: how does art respond to the stimuli of sound? Conceptualised and curated by Dr. Preeti Bahadur Ramaswami, the works of art elaborate on auditory sensations that shape our visual perceptions – these are visualities that recall hearing sonic waves, vibrations, and other analogue patterns from all around us. Imagining music as a literal figure of sound, this eclectic group of artists – Alexander Gorlizki and Richard Coldman, Arslan Farooqi, Digbijayee Khatua, Hammad Gillani, Kapil Sharma, Katyayini Gargi, Laxmipriya Panigrahi, Mohammad Zeeshan, Puja Mondal, Rehana Mangi, and Waswo X Waswo – examine its presence in a multisensorial reality, a flux of sensory phenomena where the visual world extracts a layered meaning with the auditory world.
With works of Puja Mondal, Digbijayee Khatua, and Laxmipriya Panigrahi, the city is located as a site of acoustic encounters, evoking auditory sensations that often go unnoticed. There is a primal, primordial cry hidden deep within the concrete jungle that envelops us; it is a cry of environmental stress (the splash of water, the rustling of trees) that we’re further introduced to in Katyayini Gargi’s video installation and paintings. There is a loudness that is whispered in hushed tones in Arslan Farooqi, Rehana Mangi, and Hammad Gillani’s visual idioms. In their interpretations of the manuscript painting tradition from South Asia, a lived-experience is made glaringly visible, one that defines the region today – religion, and violence. Does the sound of bullets fired drown the loudspeaker’s chants of the maulana? Re-interpreting the manuscript idiom reaches a bellowing echo with Mohammad Zeeshan, Kapil Sharma, Waswo X Waswo, and Alexander Gorlizki and Richard Coldman, who introduce a sardonic humour to our everyday reality. There is a shrill laugh that bounces from one object to another as varied perspectives transform how sense-perception is understood through paintings.
