[October 22, 2013, Hong Kong]10 Chancery Lane Gallery is proud to present Atul Dodiya for his first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, Duplicator’s Dilemma, following his opening survey at the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi. Atul Dodiya (b. 1959) is a highly personal and referential artist often going into his subject matter in both a playful yet luringly dark ways. Being one of India’s most celebrated artists he works on subjects that layer and combine traditions of his native land with art historical clichés paying homage to famous artists such as Roy Lichtenstein seen in his newest series of shutter doors exhibiting at 10 Chancery Lane Gallery. The shutter doors bring the commonly seen Bombay shop fronts into the contemporary art genre. Dodiya uses the duplicity of imagery to play with wild contrasts of scenery. This series combines the metal fronts of the pop art work of Lichtenstein with the deeply expressionistic long and stringy figures of his paintings. A man whose bones can be seen through his skin reads a book, a skull lays by his side. When the door is closed, piercing cartoon like eyes peer with the phrase, “What? Why did you ask that? What do you know about my image duplicator?” Highly original, his works physically add layers of meaning to his works. They can be read half-closed or open as well as fully seeing one image or the other. His shutter door series were inspired by views of the city’s previously bustling small businesses locked down in fear of religious persecution and violence following the 1993 bombings in Bombay.
His works on paper are composed of delicate lithe-like figures that float within a phantasmal reality. Glowing and flowing water paint sets a mood that is strange yet gentle, the figures lounge and fly in a surrealist reality that the artists so aptly provokes into a curious dialogue. Dodiya is known for combining many ideas into one series of works that are transcultural and transhistorical. His inspiration is vast and rich with references that are sometimes obvious and other times highly personal.
Artist’s Statement
"What is better? The fish inside the water, or the fish outside the water? The mirror reflects reality. Is that reflection real? Is the image which an artist depicts on canvas more real than the image which the viewer sees in reality?
Probably, these are some of the philosophical questions, which arose in the process while looking at Lichtenstein's 'Mirror'. Inside-outside, above-below, real-unreal, hidden-revealed, single-double, are these opposites? This is the dilemma with which artists begin and arrive at the discovery of the relativity of the real.
The fine line between art and life gets blurred, to the point where art is overpowering the reality of life. It becomes a game of stepping in and stepping out of the creative space.
The roller shutter, with its two spaces, the inside and the outside; is an apt device to understand these dual realities. The scribe balancing on the mirror or the artist running away from the painting, escaping through Fontana's Slit and the frozen scribe are all manifestations of the duality which generates the creative dilemma. " - Atul Dodiya
About the artist
b.1959 Mumbai, India Lives and works in Mumbai, India
Atul Dodiya is one of the most prominent figures of contemporary Indian art. He melds the iconography of both Eastern and Western cultures through film, popular culture, and literature—doing so in the form of installation and painting. Dodiya’s works are deeply personal as he reflects on his own narratives with reference to the history of art and that of his home country, India. His most recent body of imagery is created on metal shutters of store fronts salvaged from the streets of Mumbai. The artist invites viewers to interact with the pieces – to open and close the shutter with its original pulley mechanism in order to see the entirety of the work as both the front and interior of the shutter is painted. This exhibition will feature 3 paintings on metal shutters as well as masterfully painted watercolors. Atul Dodiya was born in 1959 in Mumbai. He has shown extensively around the world including at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, The Tate Modern in London, The Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, The National Gallery of Modern Art in Bombay, Saatchi Collection, dOCUMENTA (12), The Asia Pacific Triennale at the Queensland Art Gallery, the 7th Gwangju Biennial and currently is having a major retrospective at The National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi. This will be his first solo exhibition in Hong Kong.
About 10 Chancery Lane Gallery
10 Chancery Lane is one of the pioneering galleries on the Hong Kong scene. Founded in 2001 the gallery presents emerging and historically important movements in art across Asia-Pacific, supporting the development of the careers of the most exciting artists in the region including Dinh Q. Le, Vietnam, The Propeller Group, Vietnam, Huang Rui, China, Wang Keping, France/China and Manit Sriwanichpoom, Thailand. The gallery is committed to documenting the development of the highest quality art in the region through survey exhibitions, talks, forums and publishing. There is a strong curatorial focus. Important shows are conceived and hosted with some of Asia’s leading curators, Feng Boyi (China), Erin Gleeson (Cambodia), Zoe Butt (Vietnam) and Iola Lenzi (Thailand). There is a particular focus on artist from the Asia Pacific including from South East Asia and visual and performance art from China including that of the 1979 Beijing early art movement “The Stars”. Represented artists have important museum shows. Dinh Q. Le was the first Vietnamese artist to exhibit at MOMA New York in June 2010., while the Australian artist John Young was shown at the Guggenheim in New York. Gallery artists have exhibited in the Venice Biennale, Documenta, Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Fukuoka Triennial, Singapore Biennial, Guangzhou Triennial and Busan Biennale. Four artists represented by the gallery were included in dOCUMENTA13. 10 Chancery Lane Gallery supports the development of contemporary art in Hong Kong as a founding member of the Hong Kong Galleries Association and through its HKFOREWORD Series, showcasing the work of young artists from the city.
