Indo-American Arts Council, Inc.

IAAC Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Art of the Diaspora 2013


Reet Das

ARTIST STATEMENT

I have been shaped by my experiences, memories, and dreams of growing up around animals in urban settings. Besides the many pets my family had, I marveled at wildlife existing on rooftops, crevices in sidewalks, and the gaps within abandoned buildings. They are tied to us as we are tied to them and each wrestles for space in a continually expanding urban jungle. I curiously witnessed this displacement of as concrete and asphalt swallowed up flora and fauna. As a child, my love and curiosity of the natural world was deepened through Rudyard Kipling's "Just So Stories" and the "Jungle Book", Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, and books about Shark attacks that I obsessed over in the library after school. Animals became odd super-heroes and mentors surrounded by fur, scales and feathers. Now as an adult, I have become their savior when I find them injured or abandoned…still, within the confines of my urban jungle.

The work that I have been making over the years weaves together layer upon layer of translucent imagery of flora, fauna, architecture and corporeal forms. They are created on surfaces that include worn out blueprints, out of date maps, and stained multi-tonal paper. These landscapes relate struggle, convergence, harmony and dissonance. The smaller works are a moment captured in time while the larger paintings are animal allegories - overlapped with a crisp ribbon of color that acts like a narrator's voice recounting various events. The dense and delicate imagery repeats and blends into pattern from one work to the next; each new painting and drawing continuing to recount and document their existence among us.

BIO

Education:
1998 MFA - School of Visual Arts, New York City
1988 BA/BS - Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY
Double Major: Fine Art/Business / Minor: Art History.

Solo Exhibitions:
2009 -     Gershwin Hotel, New York City
2006 -     American Academy in Rome, Rome, Italy
1999 -     Cellar Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
1998 -     Internal Journey, Westchester Community College, New York
1994 -     Meghalaya Landscape Paintings, Oberoi Gallery, Calcutta, India
1993 -     Las Tierras, Museo Quetzaltenango, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala
1993 -     Huesos, Galaria Roeches, Xela, Guatemala
1990 -     Revolver Space, Boston, Massachusetts

Group Exhibitions:
2012 -     Snails and Trails, Lake George Arts, Lake George, NY
                 Erasing Borders 2011, Indo-American Arts Council
                 -- ART6 - Richmond, VA
                 -- Bronx Charter School for Arts, Bronx, NY
                 -- Crossing Art Gallery, Queens, NY
2011 -     One Foot in the Other World, Brooklyn Artists Gym, Brooklyn, NY
                 Erasing Borders 2011, Indo-American Arts Council
                 -- Jorgensen Center for the Arts, U. of Conn, Storrs CT
                 -- Aicon Gallery, New York City
                 -- The Wang Center, SUNY Stony Brook, NY
                 -- Queens Museum of Art, Queens NY
                 Phan*Tas'Ma*Gor'ic, 263 Bowery Gallery, New York City
2010 -     Signature Power: Legends and Other Myths, Brooklyn, NY
2009 -     The New Boom Collective, New York City
                 Zoo II, Courthouse Gallery, Lake George, NY
                 Boomerang, Michel Allen Gallery, New York City
                 Inaugural Show, Art Raw, New York City
2008 -     Animals In Your Kingdom, Micro Museum, Brooklyn, NY
                 Reunion, Tang Museum, Saratoga Springs, New York
                 Antagonist Art Movement, New York City
                 Teeny Tiny, Micro Museum, Brooklyn, New York
2007 -     MySpace, Gallery 51, North Adams, Massachusetts
2004 -     International Center of Photography (ICP), "Only Skin Deep, National Survey", New York City
2001 -     Rotunda Gallery, "It Happened in Lime Mills", Brooklyn NY
2000 -     Bronx Museum, New York City
                 Lineage, D.U.M.B.O. art center, New York City
                 Schick Gallery, Saratoga Springs, New York
1999 -     Schick Gallery, Saratoga Springs, New York
                 Richard Anderson Gallery,New York City
1998 -     *9, West Chelsea Arts Center, New York City
                 SUBTEC, Gallery Taranto, New York City
                 Painting and the Laser Copy, Columbia University, New York City
                 West Side Gallery, New York City
                 Circulo de Belles Artes, Madrid, Spain
1997 -     Digital Salon, New York City
                 Gale Gates Et Al, New York City
1993 -     Los Viajeros, Museo Quetzaltenango, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala
1992 -     Paid Pleasure, Revolver Space, Boston, Massachusetts
1991 -     Aiken Gallery "Drawings & Paintings", Boston, Massachusetts
                 Contempary monoprints, Eidenbach Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts
1988 -     Schick Gallery, Saratoga Springs, New York

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