Walkthrough | Suchitra Mattai, Osmosis: in the face of the sea
Saturday, Apr 15, 2023 4 – 6 pm219 N. Elizabeth St.
Floors 1 & 2
Chicago, IL 60607
Walkthrough: Saturday, April 15, 4–6 PM
Kavi Gupta | 219 N. Elizabeth St. Floor 2
Join us on Saturday, April 15th for a walkthrough with artist Suchitra Mattai of her newly reopened Osmosis: in the face of the sea at Kavi Gupta | Elizabeth St. Fl. 2.
Kavi Gupta presents Osmosis: in the face of the sea, an expanded and extended edition of Suchitra Mattai’s groundbreaking solo exhibition Osmosis.
Thinking about the saltwater ocean migrations that have shaped her family’s heritage, Mattai has both a scientific and a poetic interest in osmosis, a process that involves the migration of water molecules from one region to another. In a manner of speaking, osmosis is about equilibrium, or the transferral of something to achieve a new balance. Salt is an osmotic trigger; throughout the exhibition, Mattai employs salt as both a sculptural medium and a chemical instigator of aesthetic transformation.
Mattai’s expressions of transference and balance relate to the layering of new stories and cultural traditions atop those that already exist. Conceived as an exhibition that would evolve in order to allow a living examination of its theme, this second manifestation of Osmosis introduces multiple new works, including three new large-scale wall tapestries woven from vintage saris.
As in the original manifestation of the exhibition, the central work in Osmosis: in the face of the seais a large-scale sculpture of a temple ruin made from salt. The form appears to be emerging from the floor. Its glistening, encrusted form recalls a story of seafarers off the coast of Mahabalipuram who witnessed the appearance of such ruins when the waters temporarily receded from shore prior to a tsunami. When the sea rushed back in, the ruins disappeared. They exist now only in the seafarers’ memories and the stories they tell. Recalling the architecture of a Hindu temple, the temple ruin is positioned in the part of the gallery where the garbha griha, or most sacred space, would be.