Imaged Reality, Archival glue, cambric, MDF
Vadehra Art Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Indian contemporary artist Astha Butail – the artist’s first solo show in London – at FRIEZE No.9 Cork Street from 27 February to 17 March 2025. Curated by London-based Linsey Young, the show titled A Transcendent Force features a collection of 7 recent installations and sculptures, with works on paper, textile and wood, rendered in a predominantly monochromatic palette, using mixed media.
Astha Butail’s research-based oeuvre is drawn towards cultural practices, literatures, philosophies and oral traditions, interpreted in a contemporary context and translated into an interdisciplinary array of media – from drawings, sculpture and assemblages to performance, video and interactive installations. Her visual vocabulary is most often expressed in geometric forms that help facilitate an understanding of how differing elements of an entity come together to form a whole. ‘Butail’s thoughtfully researched practice seeks to explore the potentialities of spiritual and contemplative dimensions on contemporary life...Her engagement with ancient oral traditions are expressed through meticulously composed surfaces that can be read as scores or tools through which to look inward,’ writes Linsey Young.
This Song of Thy Affirming to Be As If Thy Chariot II/edition 1, Acrylic on archival paper
In this solo exhibition, Butail locates the tipping point of the cogitative self largely encapsulated in contentions between the inner consciousness and what lies beyond it. The show explores a continuity between different generations through recitations and repetitions of oral cultures, by linking the Self and the Mind alongside their duality. Butail explores such dialectical ideas by approaching metaphors around being and time through material manifestations, expressed in rhythmic and pattern-based arrangements. In layering narratives within narratives, she unravels a flux of movement from and towards notions of vastness, existing within the inner realms of human existence that guide us towards an integral transformation. Butail offers viewers a visual meditation of such simple yet esoteric themes, connecting the wisdom of ancient traditions of knowledge to the existential conundrums flanking the modern mind.
Unborn Series III Hand woven muslin, archival ink, MDF and teak wood
‘I am thrilled to have the opportunity to curate Astha Butail’s first major exhibition in London. Developed in close conversation with the artist, the exhibition will showcase Butail’s embodied, decades-long research into spiritual practices and ancient oral traditions and their potential for personal and societal transformation and harmony,’ says Young.
Words Platform Desk
Date 26.02.2025