During Neeta
Omprakash’s Nehru-Fulbright Scholarship in the USA, she curated an exhibition of transnational Indian and African artists there.
It was around that time she came upon Gail Gelburd’s art work on the Japanese
Tsunami. Gail was later to be one of her invitees from a number of Goan and
American artists to participate in the ‘Life of Forms through Water’, an
ongoing exhibition Neeta has put together in Goa.
A PhD and a professor at
the visual arts department at Eastern Connecticut State University where she
lectures on museum studies, Asian, African-American, Cuban, Japanese and
contemporary art, Gail Gelburd is also a writer and creator of art. Her work
crosses boundaries of disciplines to focus on the intersection of art, social
issues and spirituality. Curating over 20 exhibitions worldwide, many of her
books are created to accompany her exhibitions. Bringing this wealth of
experience to her present installation of three worn out sand and water covered
suitcases Gail explains the genesis of her work. “My work is about the power of water,
the importance of the people and that what we carry with us is not the things
that we own but the memories of those loved and lost. The story that is told on
a panel in the gallery is about a young woman who survived nine minutes of the
worst earthquake and then Tsunami only to discover that her small town of Gamma
did not survive,” explains Gail who began with the interviews and images of
people shortly after the Tsunami. “I added encaustic to create the textures of
water. Other materials were incorporated in order to provoke the visitor to
feel the tragedy of the event and yet relate to their own lives about what is
truly valuable. The piece which has dual images is entitled Ryujin: Dragon God
of the Sea.”
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The installation which comprises three
suitcases, each appearing worn and covered in water and sand and water
projecting from the suitcase have dual images. The first relates to the flow of
a river on one, on another by the shore and on another the torrent of the
waterfall. “Behind each one is another image which can hardly be seen except in
the reflection in the inside back of the suitcase. One reflects the barren
earth and the grandmother that was lost, another reflects the house and village
torn apart, and the third is the personal shrine created for those who were
lost. Inside the case is raked sand, representing again the water. In this
case it is sand from Goa, giving the work a personal connection to the people
who visit it,” elucidates Gail.
A leading
Persian painter and associate professor of painting and drawing at the Eastern
Connecticut State University, Afarin Rahmanifar’s upbringing in Iran left a
deep impression of the Iranian mythology and the culture on her creative mind.
“My artistic vision originates at the intersecting points of eastern and
western cultures. In my painting, I tend to evoke awareness towards my present
identity as an American Iranian,” explains Afarin whose work has been collected
and exhibited across the globe. Effectively using the concept of life and the
ritual aspect of water in her paintings, the water series has afforded another
opportunity to perpetuate this aspect. “The ritual purification of water in
Eastern culture was one of the main reflective areas in my water series,” she
says of her canvases. “In this series, I have shown several sections of earth
with alternate layers of water and aquatic animal safely dwelling in a little
domain.”
(Life of Forms through
Water curated by Neeta Omprakash is on display at Gallery Gitanjali, Fontainhas
till January 15, 2015)
