Exploring other spaces

Nekshan Dabu is back at the Gallery Chemould with a new series of works called "the black holes in my mind and other such abstractions.” The group show, in which the 32-year-old shares display room with seven other artists, was held at the Gallery’s temporary premises off Colaba Causeway from August 6 to 31, 2011. The Gallery’s Prescott Road space is being upgraded with a new lighting system, curator Sandra Khare informed Parsiana.

Nekshan Dabu (top); "Drawing machine and drawing” assemblage (left); and a work from her "black hole series”

When Parsiana asked Dabu via SMS (short messaging service) why she chose "black hole” as a theme at a time when she had a cherub in her arms, the new mother was vastly amused. She promptly responded "black hole is not dark or morose. It’s about the mystery and a different dimension or plane of existence to dwell in.” She explains in the brochure, the "black hole is a region of space from which nothing, not even light, can escape. So I dwell into my black reveries... feel the essence of black... (and) become the powerful black void” discovering that "my mind too has a black hole.” Dabu’s monochromatic series is an attempt at "exteriorizing what is internal and not visible, making these connections visible.” So, using convex mirrors, magnifying glasses, bundles of black thread, metal and electrical wires, Dabu creates works that embody "a dimension beyond existence” (see "Dabu’s other dimensions,” Events and Personalities, Parsiana, August 21, 2010). Her black graphics with fine detailing of the innards of humans quirkily juxtaposed with machine parts are presented with luminous layering of paper and canvas. The fish eye motif from her previous works is reprised in one work, appearing as though staring at the viewer through a rectangular plastic magnifying sheet.

Another sculpture incorporates 16 small convex mirrors with drawings and prints on a sinuous wire frame, while in another a plumb line swings to one extreme on penciled wires suspended from a safety pin. "Drawing machine and drawing” is an assemblage created out of a modified bicycle wheel, two pencils, paper and canvas. When the pedal is pushed the wheel rotates and the pencil attached to it playfully inscribes a perfect circle on the canvas on the wall behind it.