K. G. Subramanyan, Untitled, Terracotta, 11” x 10.5” x 1.5”
Sunaparanta, Goa new show titled Sculpsit: Between Thought and Action is an exhibition of sculpture and drawings curated by Sasha Altaf with artists Anupam Sud | Akbar Padamsee | Navjot Altaf | Baiju Parthan Gieve Patel | Gigi Scaria | Himmat Shah | Jyoti Bhatt I K. G. Subramanyan | A. Ramchandran | N. N. Rimzon Rajkumar Korram | Shantibai | Sudhir Patwardhan | T.V. Santosh. The show previews on October 4 and then is open from October 5 till December 22nd.
Sasha’s essay:
The term ‘Sculpsit’ literally means ‘he (or she) engraved or sculpted it’… Up to the 1870s, book illustrations required two steps: the artist drawing the design on paper, and then an engraver translating it to wood or copper. A word frequently put at the foot of an engraving or the base of a piece of sculpture after the engraver or sculptor's name: as in, ‘P. L.sculpsit’.
Deriving from this dialogic relationship between drawing to sculpture, this exhibition proposed to envision sculpture not as an (abstract) continuum but as a material envelope that grows organically from the original drawing, sketch, maquette or photograph…. whereby the artist plays both the role of the artist and the engraver … emphasizing both - change and transience, material and materiality, where the image (drawing/ sketch / photograph) and the form (sculpture) reveal the complex interchanges and the ensuing interaction between the artists’ drawing and the translation of it in form namely the ‘sculpture’. Most of the artists in this show are represented by the Guild or are associated with, are not practicing sculptors. Sculpture not being their primary medium then opens up for a more subjective reading… one that covers a range of thought processes, from the immediate, intimate to the investigative, analytical and narrative.
The conception of the processes of drawing and making sculpture is profoundly akin to thought. This essay does not follow a chronological or categorical order but marks a process that traces a range of subjects, whereby artists have used the immediacy of drawing, (Baiju Parthan uses 3D software; photograph in the case of Jyoti Bhatt and Sudhir Patwardhan) as a means to prepare and hone a concept. In some cases, the intimate portrayals of the figure assume a central position, and at times predetermined rules, structures and methods govern the form of the image - imagery from the fantastically bizarre to the illustrative. All which examine how drawing, sketches and photography have been used to question and simultaneously understand its role in the mediation and construction of both ‘memory’ and finally ‘form’.
– excerpt from an essay by Sasha Altaf, curator