PERFORMATIVE TEXTURES

September 2003 

Group show curated by Dr. Alka Pande

Presented by Apparao Galleries at Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi

“A successful work of art is not one which resolves contradictions in a spurious harmony, but one which expresses the idea of harmony negatively by embodying the contradictions, pure and uncompromised, in its innermost structure…Theodore Adorno.”

What is texture? Textures add to and enhance a work of art. Textures invite further investigation. Texture may be illusionary, it may be thickly layered, it may be hinted at or implied, it may be impossible to over look. Whatever its incarnation, whatever its role, texture has served to heighten art. From Van Gogh and Monet to Pollock, artists have employed texture to express emotion, to create layering and to achieve a pinnacle in abstraction.

Texture…”the visual or tactile surface characteristics and appearance of something.” Qualifiers such as “rough”, “smooth”, “coarse”, “silken”, “thin” and “thick” most often accompany the term. “Texture”, in art, describes two areas of artistic phenomena: congruous and harmonic relationships and the density of the simultaneous layering of different artistic components. The simplest and most traditional use of the term “texture” describes the “construction” of a work of art. Defined by the number and variety of media, techniques and materials used in performance, as well as to the number of parts working together to produce the overall visual web.

Used as surface embellishments, as language, they are aspects, which are an element of the work of art. This show attempts to question and explore the language of textures. Your work has articulated a preoccupation and indeed a fascination with texture and the materiality of surfaces and it would be wonderful if you would contribute towards the show by submitting four works by 2003. Significant questions that the show will attempt to explore include:

As a visual artist what would you say is your fascination with texture?
What part does texture play in your art practice?
Does texture play a deciding role or it is more in the nature of an embellishment?

Dr. Alka Pande