Wednesday 16 October 2019

Batin | Solo Exhibition by Saubiya Chasmawala





About the Exhibition

We are delighted to present Batin – Saubiya Chasmawala’s second solo exhibition in Mumbai, and her first at TARQ, following her 2017 show Pilgrimage of Historical Oversights at Clark House. In this exhibition, Chasmawala works to further develop her engagement with Arabic script, pushing the boundaries of abstraction. In her paintings of ink and natural dyes, Chasmawala layers characters to obscure the rigidity of their form, moving away further away from her older, representational works.



Bātin literally means "inner" and in this context, is connected deeply to the artist’s relationship to her practice. Her newest works are born out of a desire to demystify, to unveil, and are the results of an intuitive, introspective, almost meditative mark making process. The artwork is undoubtedly and almost inextricably tied to Chasmawala’s sense of self, history, and identity and their creation is a therapeutic, almost cathartic process for her, and an opportunity to move away from a sense of conflict and duality.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue featuring an essay by Skye Arundhati Thomas, which delves into Chasmawala’s unique approach to abstraction, form and texture.

About the Artist

Saubiya Chasmawala (b.1990) received her Masters in Visual Arts from Vadodara’s Maharaja Sayajirao University, Fine Arts, specialising in painting (2015). She interned under the paper-artist Anupam Chakraborty in hand paper-making at the Nirupama Akademi, Kolkata.

In September 2017, Saubiya had her first solo exhibition, Pilgrimage of Historical Oversights, at Clark House initiative in Mumbai. She has been a part of various group shows including Words of Her Seeing, Conflictorium, Museum of Conflict, Ahmedabad (2019); In letter and spirit, TARQ, Mumbai (July 2016); Unwinding,  Nazar Art Gallery, Vadodara, India (November 2016); Reading Room, a travelling exhibition curated by Amit Jain, Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, United Kingdom (October 2015) and New York (September – October 2016) and Emerging Palettes, an exhibition of paintings, Srishti Art Gallery, Hyderabad (August 2015). Her work was also exhibited at the India Art Fair, represented by TARQ (2018), and CIMA award show (February 2017).

Recently, Saubiya was part of the Artist’s Program at The Space Studio, Baroda (February-April, 2019). She has been an artist-in-residence at the Blueprint12 Studio, Vadodara (July-a TIFA working studios in February 2017.

She is a recipient of the prestigious Nasreen Mohamedi Scholarship Award (2011-12) and Inlaks Fine Art Award (2016). She currently practices her art in Vadodara at her personal studio. 



Preview: Thursday, 17th  October  2019 | 6:30 pm – 9:30 pm
11:00 am – 6:30 pm | Tuesday – Saturday | Closed on Public Holidays

Ananyaa  Menon: press@tarq.in or +91 22 6615 0424

Invitation for a panel discussion "DANCE and the CITY " on 16th October, 2019 at NGMA, Mumbai.

 NGMA, Mumbai.