Blind Spot – Aditya Pande

Nature Morte opens its doors for the public to witness the artistic brilliance of Delhi-based artist Aditya Pande in his newest show – ‘Blind Spot.’ He has been represented by Nature Morte since 2007. He has also displayed his mixed-media artworks at the Alexia Goethe Gallery in London for his solo show in 2009. 

The exhibition will take place in Nature Morte’s Delhi gallery space at the Dhan Mill compound. ‘Blind Spot’ will open on Friday, August 2nd, from 7 to 9 pm, and will remain on view through Sunday, September 1st.

The artworks made by Aditya Pande would seem to exist on several simultaneous yet oppositional planes. They have been generated through highly sophisticated computerized means but also the most rudimentary forms of mark-making. They are playful and childish while also frightening and grotesque. They are steeped in culture yet almost animalistic. They are orchestrated yet spontaneous, revelling in the linguistic structures of pure gibberish. 

Pande has invented his peculiar technique. First, complex images are constructed on the computer which is then printed onto, usually, paper, occasionally canvas or vinyl. Those on paper are to be framed, so Pande works on the acrylic sheets beforehand, adding hand-applied marks and attaching objects and other materials. The results are hybrids which combine drawing, painting, and collage. Standing in front of these works, one has little bearing on how they have been constructed, their sequencing seems unreadable, and much of their imagery is undecipherable. 

Pande’s imagery is both alluring and cryptic. We could see them as cosmological diagrams, akin to the marvelous graphic universes devised by Jainism, inhabited by the infinite range of shape-shifting beings so central to Hindu belief. Pande’s space is that of the primordial ooze, out of which matter and energy congealed to become everything we know and are. The constellations of Pande’s cosmology result from spills, stains, streams of spit and tangled strings; the languages he communicates with are devised of stutters, hiccups, grunts and nervous tics. 

The beings of Pande’s cosmos mimic the attributes of aliens, insects, phantasms and freaks. We may recognize ourselves in Pande’s characters: fabrications of our imaginations, deluded by our sensations, both welcoming and aloof. Pande’s stylistic capacity is rapacious and gluttonous. His program involves the complete integration of subject and object until one enfolds the other and both are lost in a kaleidoscope of chaotic multiplicity. 

Pande’s works prove incapable of accepting any of the monikers of Western Art History (Surrealism, Pop Art, Action Painting, etc.). The sources from which this art spring are too diverse, too fecund, for these categories to be relevant; the visual and conceptual ancestry of South Asia being ragingly polymorphous. The viewer may feel untethered, floating somewhere between prehistoric cave paintings and science fiction fantasies. 

About Aditya Pande

Aditya Pande (born 1976) received a degree in Graphic Design from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad in 2001. Pande’s solo exhibitions have been presented at galleries in New Delhi, New York, Mumbai, Brazil, Milan, and London.

Pande’s process involves both the manipulation of computer-aided technologies and also more traditional media. As such, an individual work may draw on the use of media as diverse as vector drawing, digital photography, ink, tinsel and acrylic paint. The dense layering of the picture plane marks the artist’s process; this often extends right onto the acrylic covering the artwork.

Image Courtesy – Nature Morte

7th edition of Delhi Contemporary Art Week Highlights Voices of South Asian Artists