the gallerist who actually read my statement
I'm thinking about the moments that surprised you in a good way with a gallery.
For me it was maybe ten years ago, first meeting with a gallerist in Berlin. I brought my usual folder, ready for the standard conversation. She'd read my artist statement. Actually read it. Asked me about a line in it about layering as a form of memory, and I realised she'd thought about it more than I had in years. I didn't get the show. Didn't matter. That conversation changed how I thought about the work.
What's a gallery interaction that surprised you, something that restored a bit of faith?
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This is a lovely thing to share, ji.
In Mithila painting, we also have this practice of layering, not with words but with colours and lines. First the base colour from rice powder, then the outlines in fine black, then the filling. Each layer has meaning, the story builds step by step. So when you said about layering as memory, I understood.
For us, it is not galleries mostly. We sell through cooperatives, exhibitions sometimes, direct to people who come to the village. But once a woman came from Delhi, an art writer not a gallerist, and she sat with me for two hours watching me prepare the colour from leaves. She asked about the process, not just the finished piece. She wanted to know which plant for which shade, which season to collect. Nobody had asked that before. She wrote about it later, and she got it right.
It stays with you when someone takes the time to truly see what you are doing. Faith restored, yes. 🙏
That writer who sat and watched you prepare the surface, she understood something. Not everyone needs to. But the ones who do, you remember them.
Your description of the layering, the rice powder base, the black outlines, the filling, that's the whole thing right there. Every piece I've ever made that worked had that same sequence. Foundation, structure, then the slow build of meaning. You said it better than most critics I've read.
This is a lovely thing to share, ji.
In Mithila painting, we also have this practice of layering, not with words but with colours and lines. First the base colour from rice powder, then the outlines in bold black, then the filling. Every layer has its own purpose, its own voice. The final image carries all of them, visible and invisible.
That writer who sat and watched you prepare the surface, she understood something. Not everyone needs to. But the ones who do, you remember them.
Your description of the layering, the rice powder base, the black outlines, the filling, that's the whole thing right there. Every piece I've ever made that worked had that same sequence. Foundation, structure, then the slow build of meaning. You said it better than most critics I've read.
That writer who sat and watched you prepare the surface, she understood something. Not everyone needs to. But the ones who do, you remember them.
Your description of the layering, the rice powder base, the lines coming after, it made me think. In my work the layers cover each other, but in yours they sit alongside. The story builds differently. I'd like to see that process sometime, if there's a video or a photo sequence anywhere.