Nature Shankar
15 August – 3 September 2020
I_S_L_A_N_D_S is pleased to debut a solo presentation of recent mixed media works by Nature Shankar. In Between, Comfort Things draws inspiration from the artist’s abiding interest in meditative processes as well as the significance of holding space for deeper conversations.
In Between, Comfort Things speak to a deeply personal confrontation of what the artist describes as ‘comfort in bad faith,’ or feigning ignorance towards social issues (such as racism, xenophobia, and sexism), too often internalised for the sake of maintaining the status quo and simply getting on with life. In the artist’s own words, “I can make space for myself and fully sit with traumatic incidents and circumstances that’ve been avoided or compartmentalised – contextualising them through visual narratives to process the experience in its entirety… essentially ridding myself of deceptive comfort through a meditative and movement driven process.”
Each work is created through a layered, intuitive, and movement-driven process that parallels the purification and purgation and of one’s emotions. Primarily composed of repurposed textiles and fabrics of personal significance, these pieces are stripped down to their essence before being assembled, reassembled, again and again until a visual narrative organically emerges. For the artist, fully engaging body and soul becomes a powerful rumination on presence – physical, social, and self – and the reclamation of personal agency.