Towards the Untaming of the Gardens of our Seas: The Exhibition

Inauguration day pics (click caption)  

The Works (click caption)

A collaborative effort featuring new drawings and watercolour works by Soraya Taher and Mithun Jayaram @ U.B. City, Bangalore.

Location of U.B. City (its 1cm directly under the [A] point),

After entering through the main doors and security checks,

take a right and ride the escalator up one floor.

Date and Timing:

Friday, 19th November (opening day) - 7:00 pm onwards

Saturday, 20th to Friday 26th November (gallery timings) - 11:00am - 8:00pm (Soraya and i will be around this time too... feel free to come join us in conversation, we may be preparing an installation during this time)

Contact:

+91-9448820631

+91-9986580786

Email:

- isleeponthebedimake@yahoo.com

- soraya.safdar@gmail.com

Short bio:

- On Soraya and her new works

- On Mithun and his new works

- A little about us and the title

Links in relation to the works:
- Opening day pics.
- The works showcased.

- Excerpt from, "Preoccupations;Things that artists do" by Cornelia Erdmann and Micheal Lee.

- Link to the Flickr page with more pictures that will be added in time.

- We are on facebook

Acknowledgements


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About Soraya Taher

Singapore born and raised Soraya Taher is a BA Honours graduate (2005) of LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts, Singapore. Her work had been selected and featured in the Best of Singapore Art 2004. Specializing in Graphic Design, she had weaved her skills and her love of children to conduct art programmes for pre-schoolers in Singapore.

She is now a full-time mom raising two children. With the intention of reconnecting herself with the joy of art-making, she has taken this opportunity to create a new set of works. Soraya's process allows for her hand to flow across the paper to create motifs of floral, intricate and fluid abstractions. Her new set of works reflects moments that she spends with her children and family.

One of Soraya's long-term plans is to open an art school for children to help them expand their visual and tactile experience with the world. 

Towards the Untaming of the Gardens of our Seas

It is a mouthful of a title to swallow... So why don't we talk about it by first talking a bit about ourselves;

Soraya and i graduated from the same art college (LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts) in Singapore but, had pocketed different perspectives from the same space. During our time there, we knew of each others existence and would confirm it by passing 'hello' smiles at the cafeteria or library.


The first time we had really spoken was about three years after graduation. She was rushing over to her hair styling classes while i had been running around getting errands done for my then-employers. Our chancing together that day led to an intense fifteen minutes where we shared what we had been up to and where we would be heading. Soraya was preparing to shift to Bangalore after her marriage, while i was making plans to shift in with my parents who (coincidently) happen to live in Bangalore too.


It was something for the both of us to look forward to. That neither of us would really be alone in a foreign country... That we could reminiscent over taut popiahs that could be held well by chopsticks, slithering laksa noodles, mrt systems and other moments we'd miss about Singapore. 


This was to be the first time either of us lived in India.

We kept in touch as and when we could. Soraya would share with me of her love of paper-art and when i would gift her something, she would light up promptly, to ask if its made of paper. Our get-togethers would end by a discussion of collaborating to make paper-art and for me to look up paper artist, Jen Stark's work. 


Sometime beginning of August 2010, she tells me that shes been given an opportunity to make and display works anytime before December this year. 
She baits to see if i'm interested in joining in. 
I bite. And she quickly reels me in.


So now  we have a space and less than 3 months to make a new set of works. which led to brainstorming sessions as to what this exhibition will be about.

Is there a theme to this exhibition? We would be presumptuous to say that we have any planned. What we can share with you are observations... such as, us have a liking for long fluid lines showcasing some sense of intricacies or how we both like involving our hands in our work and entering our bubble of concentration as we take the time to make works.

“If we are in a rut, it is a palatial and exquisite rut. And yet, like prisoners in a cell, we grip our ribs from within, rattle them, and beg for release.”, wrote Diane Ackerman in her book, ‘A Natural History of the Senses’.

And we were in our ruts. At that moment we were in our individual cages rattling away and quietly begging for we had forgotten what it was like to feel that strength of connection with our own impassioned creative juices... with ourselves. It was like speaking to a loved one in another continent over a mobile phone, and the voice through that phone was crackling away on its last bar of reception.

A frustrating inability to communicate with the ‘fire in ones belly’.

Carolyn M. Kleefeld wrote a poem in her book, 'Climates of the Mind' that helped visualize how the ecosystem of ideas and creativity functioned;

"... There's a symphonic coalescence
between the pulse of my streams
and the seas outside
My dynamics claim the freedom
the abandon born of the gypsy wind

The untamed gardens of the sea
offer me a palatial everchanging playground
The tides landscape these nomadic gardens endlessly

The plasma of the sea gives without loss 
Gifting me with waterfalls
that cascade inside me into ideas-
pools of imagination to swim in..." (excerpt)

An apt visualization of our momentary disconnection, which became the title and visual for which our selves are growing towards.


We hope to see you here soon!


Have an excellent week ahead!

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