PHRASE | FRAYS | SHRUTI MAHAJAN

PHRASE contains words and ideas in a neat package

FRAYS is the undoing of fabric, thought, even memory

PHRASE is Letters, rigid outlines and structure

FRAYS is Salvage, which holds various threads of emotions, histories, conflicted sentiments, consequences, and the ultimate unravelling of people's lives

PHRASE is a set of eight Lifafe (envelopes) locked in a grid, folded, coloured, and transformed, turned into flattened monumental structures

FRAYS is Fields, which take intuitive forms of land as seen from the sky

PHRASE is the mathematics that dictates warp and weft

FRAYS is the soft edges of old notebooks, scribbled notes, shredded paintings, letters and fragments collected over the years

PHRASE is where fragments are turned into securely held panels

FRAYS is threadbare

PHRASE is a neat colour wheel put in practice

FRAYS is bleeding colour, an explosion of ochre next to grey

PHRASE | FRAYS is made of three parts: Salvage, Text | Textile, and Post. In each section, Shruti Mahajan uses fabric, paper, repurposed stationery, and found objects, to sketch, make drawings, paintings, and construct collages. She finds the overlaps between the malleability of fabric and the constraints of a framework. A palimpsestic trope runs throughout the show, and no material is left unexamined, untouched, or untreated. These are personal stories of movement, memories, and materiality.

The work is a non-linear journey from Indian towns in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra to border-towns in Rajasthan and Kashmir - all the way to cities like Florence (Italy) and Cologne (Germany). The exhibition maps the growth of the person and the artist, as she comes to terms with her own internal conflicts, demands of society, and her artistic career.

PHRASE | FRAYS reveals the friction and tension between ideas, themes, media, but it is, perhaps, a meditative negotiation, a space created for interpretation and layers

PHRASE | FRAYS challenges dichotomies and absolutes

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