Artist Profile :: Sheba Chhachhi

21 January 2009

In partnership with Gallery Nature Morte, one of India’s premiere contemporary art spaces since 1997, Phillips de Pury & Company presents The Audience and the Eavesdropper: New Art from India & Pakistan, featuring 10 of the most influential and soughtafter artists working in India and Pakistan. The exhibition opens in London on 26 November 2008 and in New York on 28 January 2009.

Through 15 December 2008:
Phillips de Pury & Company
Howick Place London SW1P 1BB

From 28 January - 14 February 2009:
Phillips de Pury & Company
450 West 15 Street New York NY

Sheba Chhachhi explores themes of gender, asceticism, marginality, industrialism and the relationship between man and nature in her work. Chhachhi originally worked in a photo-jouranlistic format, joining and studying groups of women operating on the fringes of society, most famously tracing the lives of female ascetics living in northern India. In her current body of work, Chhachhi has developed a new artistic language by creating photographic light boxes which consist of a series of shimmering layered screens, each printed with a photographic collage made of diverse elements. When viewed, the works take on a startling dimensionality as each layer merges in and out of each other to create a vibrant almost cinematic aesthetic.

Sheba Chhachhi, Kukkat/Kak Asana - Myanmar Drought, 2007

In these works, man exists in an ethereal union with the natural landscape. Her figures seem to float above or within the diaphanous environs of the boxes, not a video but also not a still photograph. In a group of three works, the figures take on the angelic curves of yogic asanas, quoting India’s ancient and unchanged form of physical and spiritual discipline. The layered images allow human, animal and earth to fade into each other, blurring the lines between each body and begging the question of how truly separate are these organisms. Overall, the works dip in and out of references to cultural and scientific migrations, mythical assemblies of exotic birds, levitating bodies in soulful poses and aerial views of earth which dwarf civilization.

Sheba Chhachhi lives and works in New Delhi, India. For sale enquiries and more information about the artist please contact Veronica Collins, vcollins@phillipsdepury.com