Hemali Bhuta’s journey into the materiality of lac, a sticky substance often used as a protective layer in objects begins by documenting its careful extraction from nature, then researches the labour intensive methods employed by shellac factories to refine and process this raw material, and inevitably pauses at the reckless disposal of lac residues into river Tajna, now rendered in a blood red hue. She then juxtaposes lac with indigo, a pigment that holds historic and political resonances - with the Silk Route, colonial undertones, and looks simultaneously at its eventual decline due to industrialisation and the rise of synthetic dyes.
Each chosen element in these works is deliberate and precise, as the artist continues her probe into the conceptual relation between materiality and meaning. These impressions are accentuated by the fact that the work is titled with a line from Akash bhora surjo tara, a song by Rabindranath Tagore included in Komal Gandhar, a film by Bengali director, Ritwik Ghatak. Rather than a fetishised art object, Bhuta opens up spaces for potent deliberations on temporality, form, contingency, and belonging, with her ritualistic practice consciously ingrained into the work. The indigo cloth is dyed with leaves collected by sweepers in the Old Goa Medical College, then dipped in an indigo vat and partially dyed in lac.
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Featured artwork:
Image 1:
‘In this world of the familiar I search for the unknown In wonder my song bursts forth’
Lac dye, indigo dye, dye from dried leaves of trees on Bengal khadi cotton
216.5 x 216.5 inches
2021
FRONT VIEW: Installation at Ceysson & Benetiere Gallery, New York, 2021
Image 2:
‘In this world of the familiar I search for the unknown In wonder my song bursts forth’
Lac dye, indigo dye, dye from dried leaves of trees on Bengal khadi cotton
216.5 x 216.5 inches
2021
REAR VIEW: Installation at Project 88, 2022
Image 3,4:
‘In this world of the familiar I search for the unknown In wonder my song bursts forth’, Detail,
Lac dye, indigo dye, dye from dried leaves of trees on Bengal khadi cotton
216.5 x 216.5 inches
2021