“I should understand the land, not as a commodity, an inert fact to be taken for granted, but as an ultimate value, enduring and alive, useful and beautiful and mysterious and formidable and comforting, beneficent and terribly demanding, worthy of the best of man’s attention and care.” ― Wendell Berry, The Hidden Wound.
Soghra Khurasani’s ongoing solo exhibition ‘Shadows under My Sky’ at TARQ, Mumbai, is the artist’s commentary on the human relationship with the land and the identity entitled by that. In her woodblock and etching prints, using land as a metaphor, Khurasani talks about diverse forms of loss and wound. The catalogue essay by Nancy Adajania says, “This new body of work conveys a deepening maturity and refinement. It has gone from a more declamatory and rhetorical tonality to a melancholia, a sense of acknowledging the wound and inaugurating a process of healing (an island-sized wound is not rendered in fiery red; instead it has a purple underlayer and is anchored in dense vegetation).” This current series of works is an outcome of her close observation of the land outside her studio on the outskirts of Baroda where the night sky allows her to study the fragility and vulnerability of the land.
Soghra Khurasani, a trained printmaker, has been showcasing her works in the major art galleries in India and the USA. She was part of several prestigious residency programmes, including Beisinghoff Printmaking Residency, Women’s Studio Workshop, Germany (2018), Khoj Kooshk Residency Exchange Program in Tehran and Delhi (2016); amongst others. She was awarded the 56th National Academy Award by Lalit Kala Akademi, Rabindra Bhavan New Delhi in 2015. She is based in Baroda.
The exhibition is on view until 23rd October, 2021.
Courtesy: Courtesy of Soghra Khurasani and TARQ
Copyright: Copyright Soghra Khurasani, 2021
