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IAAC Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Art of the Diaspora 2016
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| Padmini Mongia |
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Padmini Mongia
Website
mongiahere.wordpress.com |
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ARTIST STATEMENT
I began painting seriously about 15 years ago, and after many years as a literary scholar and teacher. Although my abstract works are not recognizably “Indian,” my sensibility is and is expressed through the materials I use and the way I relate to these materials. Handmade paper, dry indigo (neel), ink, and natural colors are some of the materials with which I experiment
I approach canvas as I do handmade paper: as a living thing with a particular materiality of its own. I paint on raw, untreated canvas and its color and specificity integrates itself into the painting. My works begin with an intuitive impulse to examine and explore color, surface, scale, and texture to create an image. I may be drawn to the thickness of the paper, the weave of canvas, or the glow of a particular color. My curiosity about what I can do with these and other materials is the starting point for my exploration. Step by step, color and texture and form interact as the image develops.
Ink, indigo, mediums, and gels are some of the substances with which I have recently been experimenting. The materiality of the paper and the canvas are an important part of my compositions. Many of my works are collaged using handmade paper from India, Myanmar, Cambodia and other places. I also experiment with brushes not usually associated with painting, such as the loose brushes made of grasses and coconut fiber, usually used for whitewashing houses, which allow me sweeping strokes impossible with a traditional brush. Increasingly I find myself working with waste materials as in the pieces here. Discarded drywall tape and food packaging have been serving me as brushes in this recent work.
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| BIO |
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2015 |
"I told You So." Included in IAAC " Erasing Borders" show. |
| February, 2015 |
Just a Few of Us.” Abstract Painters of Lancaster.
The Phillips
Museum, Franklin & Marshall College |
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| Fall 2013 |
Modulations.” Sporting Club at the Bellevue, Philadelphia |
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| October 2011, |
POST (Philadelphia Open Studios Tour)
2012, 2013 |
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| August 2010 |
“In Ink and Blue.” Solo show at Zaza Space, Zamrudpur, New
Delhi |
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| February 2009 |
Out of Blue.” Solo show at the India International Center
Annexe, New Delhi |
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| December 2008 |
“Renewal 1” included in the group show “Panorama” at Epicenter, Gurgaon |
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| May 2008- |
“Trip Tic,” and “Dry Indigo/Multan” included in “Celebration of |
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| March 2010 |
Visual Traditions” juried and touring exhibition at museums in Pennsylvania, USA. Juror: Faith Ringgold. |
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| June 2007 |
“Displaced.” Group show at the Art Institute of Philadelphia |
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| March 2007 |
The Multan Series.” Show at the Pfenninger Gallery, Lancaster,
Pennsylvania |
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| October 2006 |
“Inner Town, Multan,” included in “Celebrating India” at Delhi, March 2007 Bombay, and Bangalore. Curator: Suneet Chopra |
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| May 2006 |
Memory of Dharamsala #1” included in “Visual Traditions” December 2007 juried and touring exhibition at museums in Pennsylvania |
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| July 2006 |
“Modulations.” Solo show at Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi |
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| December 2004 |
“Shapes of Nature.” Solo show at the HabiArt Gallery, New Delhi |
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| March 2003 |
“Daphne Series 2.” Included in juried show at the AMA, Chicago |
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