Invitation
Bio
Artwork
 
 

IAAC Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Art of the Diaspora 2014

 
Reet Das
Reet Das
Reet Das
www.reetdas.com
 

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 They are created on surfaces that include worn out blueprints, out of date land surveys, and maritime maps. 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:
  • 2013 - Group Show – Curated by Joan Snyder, Bowery Gallery, New York City Journey Though Paintings, Tang Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY Erasing Borders 2013, Indo-American Arts Council -- The Arthur M. Berger Art Gallery, Manhattanville College, Purchase, NY -- Hammond Musuem – Salem, NY -- Flushing Town Hall, Queens, NY
  • 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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