Kanchana Gupta's practice yokes materiality with process and this is both the impetus and structure behind most of her works. The materials that she deploys range from quotidian socially loaded substances like vermillion powder, henna, and sandalwood, to oil paint and canvas, and to construction materials like jute and tarpaulin. Each brings its own particular identity, social symbology, texture, structure, and colour, which she manipulates using a combination of studio and industrial processes irreversibly altering the inherent properties and contexts.
Selected Works
Overview
Stacked oil paint skins burnt and stripped off jute and mounted on wooden structure
125 × 85 cm
Stacked oil paint skins burnt and stripped off jute and mounted on wooden structure
131 × 173 cm
Compressed oil paint skins burnt and stripped off tarpauline surfaces and cut manually
15 × 10 × 20 cm each (2 pieces in total)
mixed media on Jute
185 × 140 cm
stacked oil paint skins burnt and stripped off jute, mounted on wooden structure
175 × 132 cm
oil paint skins with silkscreen printing, galvanised steel frame,
steel eyelets and suspension cable
172 × 127 cm
oil paint skins with silk screen printing, galvanised steel frame,
steel eyelets and suspension cable
176 × 142 cm
oil paint skins with silkscreen printing, galvanised steel frame,
steel eyelets and suspension cable
196 × 180 cm
oil paint skins with silk screen printing, galvanised steel frame, steel eyelets and suspension cable
172 × 127 cm
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About
Kanchana Gupta
Biography
Kanchana Gupta's practice yokes materiality with process and this is both the impetus and structure behind most of her works. The materials that she deploys range from quotidian socially loaded substances like vermillion powder, henna, and sandalwood, to oil paint and canvas, and to construction materials like jute and tarpaulin. Each brings its own particular identity, social symbology, texture, structure, and colour, which she manipulates using a combination of studio and industrial processes irreversibly altering the inherent properties and contexts.
Her ongoing fascination with the materiality of paint has seen her investigate the physicality of the medium in her two-dimensional works, mixed media, and more recently through her sculptural installations. Her practice has been described as a process-driven exploration of and response to, urban environments. The pressures of unprecedented migrations, rapid urbanization, and overwhelming globalization are expressed through the extreme manual and industrial duress that she subjects her medium to. Paint set on a sub-structure of quotidian material is ritually ripped, torn, detached, peeled, burnt, and compressed to produce works that expose the strata of a deeply personal geology.
Gupta has had several solo exhibitions including FOLDED PIERCED STRETCHED, Gillman Barracks, Singapore (2022); 458.32 Square Meters, Sullivan+Strumpf Singapore (2019); Traces and Residues, Richard Koh Fine Art, Singapore (2017); and Identity II, Institute of Contemporary Arts, LASALLE College of Arts, Singapore (2011). Her work was included in The Sceneries and Portraits of an Era - Featuring the Asia Collection of Benesse Art Site Naoshima at the Fukutake House Asian Gallery, Shodoshima, Japan, and she was a finalist in the prestigious The 2024 Sovereign Asian Art Prize.
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