 Boomerang III, 2007 ink on paper, 675 x 525 mm Divyesh Bhanderi Wyer Gallery is delighted to present an exhibition by Royal Academy graduate, Divyesh Bhanderi. The exhibition, which is the artist's first solo show, features an impressive new series of paintings and work on paper. Bhanderi's drawings are made using a system of custom made devices that resemble the tools in spirograph sets used by children. But his intricately made abstract designs draw on Kandinsky, Sol Lewitt and his own Indian heritage and bear a sophistication at odds with this nostalgic association. Geometric shapes and their permutations have become his dominant visual language: formal schemes explore repetition and the variation of basic shapes and lines. His work strikes a delicate balance between perceptual and conceptual characteristics; dedication to the order of geometry and pursuit of visual beauty; and between authorship and anonymity. Indeed, Bhanderi plays with assumptions about the autographic nature of art and, through an ostensibly mechanized process, allows his artistic identity to become subsumed by his methodology. However, at the same time, he embraces accidental movements or changes in pressure as moments of uniqueness or inimitability. This tension between craftsmanship and anonymity is present in his paintings too. Reminiscent of his drawings in that they convey similar patterns on their skin, their form (wooden frames filled with a thickly viscous paint mix) is inherited chiefly from the natural forces of gravity that govern their final fecund forms as, upended and allowed to bow and droop, they solidify and dry. The metamorphosis of these strange progeny continues for the duration of the exhibition, changing in both physical appearance and meaning over time without the aid of their creator's intervention. This mysterious genesis is crucial to their success and potency as artworks and contributes an emphatically spiritual dimension to their reading. The protuberant forms of Bhanderi's paintings mark a pronounced vitality and invention and mirror the forms of undulating waves and swirling nets and colors found in his work on paper. In both, his use of colour evokes Kandinsky's theoretical association of tone with timbre, hue with pitch, and saturation with the volume of sound: Bhanderi's work vibrates with dance like tempos and musical cadences. Where used, detailed, coloured backgrounds work to define a sense of space and depth and enhance the compositions' dynamism. Their energy conveys a sense of perpetuity: that the paper's boundary frustrates a detail on a grander theme, something greater and more universal. Divyesh Bhanderi (b. 1979 England; lives and works London) graduated from the Royal Academy of Art in 2005 and become the RA Schools Gallery's Artist in Residence 2005-6. Recently he has participated in "ING's Discerning Eye" and, to mark the end of this residency, exhibited at the RA School's Gallery for Divyesh Bhanderi & Bryan Mulvihill's "World Tea Party". Exhibition: 22 February - 21 April, 2007 Gallery hours: Tues-Fri - 10 am - 6 pm, Sat 10 am - 5 pm, or by appointment Wyer Gallery 191 St. John's Hill GB-London SW11 1TH Telephone +44 (0)20 7223 8433 Email info@thewyergallery.co.uk www.thewyergallery.co.uk |
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