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IAAC Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Art of the Diaspora 2011
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| Nidhi Jalan |
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Nidhi Jalan
Web: http://www.nidhijalan.com
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Statement
Each living thing contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction and transformation into the other. This belief is fundamental to Indian cosmology and, as an artist from India; this has been a important influence on my work. The tension in my work arises from the co-existence of opposing forces that both drive and resist transformation. The changes brought about by metamorphosis and evolution create a desire for a magical world in which the subjective and the objective are indistinguishable. Notions of transformation and more specifically transmogrification form the leitmotif of my work.
I explore these notions by creating fantastic and enchanted worlds that inhabit the space between realities. My work is informed by memory and myths recast in a contemporary context. "For the child or for primitive man, no distinctions exist between the actual and the fantastic."1 The tension created by this co-existence of transformative forces provides the basis for balancing my ceramic practice and conceptual narratives explored though cross-disciplinary instillation. My most recent work Supper with a Vulture is an animated fable that playfully explores entropy and altered perception while concealing a dark centre. It reflects the central theme of much of my work, which is based on interwoven cultures, the ease or unease of the transplant, and the fertile ground that makes for the birth of hitherto unusual and fantastic life forms.
Bio
Nidhi Jalan is an artist from India who currently divides her time between New York and Calcutta. She has an MFA from Hunter College, New York and has apprenticed under Ray Meeker in Pondicherry and Michel Hutin in Auroville. She has been published in Susan Peterson's book Working With Clay and in Marg magazine. She received the Zankel Gift award at Hunter College and was awarded a prize at the 55th edition of the International Competition of Ceramic Art, MIC Faenza, Italy. She was nominated as an Emerging Artist at the NCECA (National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts) 2010 conference. She has completed residencies at The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (Maine), Henry Street Settlement (New York), Hunter College (New York) and at the European Ceramic Work Centre (Holland). She has been in a number of group and solo shows in India. Since moving to New York in 2004, she has shown at Hunter College, Carriage House at the Islip Art Museum and was in a two-person show at Long Island University. She has also had shows in New Jersey, New York, Cochin (India) and in London. Her most recent shows were at Art Kino in Stockholm and at the Soil Gallery in Seattle.
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