10.5 x 13.75 inches
Within the narrative of Sahej Rahal’s The rocks we will find, beings perform absurd acts in derelict corners of the city, emerging into the everyday as if from the cracks of our civilization, transforming them into liminal sites of ritual, and challenging ways in which we experience time and space. The temporal acts and their residue become primary motifs in his practice. The characters that inhabit these performances bare indices to different cultures, mythologies and pop culture. The artist then takes bits and pieces and arranges them into these patchwork beasts. Embodying the role of the urban shaman as a storyteller, Rahal considers the process of art making as a kind of alchemy.
Mumbai-based artist Sahej Rahal’s installations, films, photographs, and performances are part of an elaborate personal mythology he has created by drawing characters from a range of sources, from local legends to science fiction. His body of work is a growing narrative that draws upon mythical beings from different cultures, hybridizing and bringing them into a dialogue with the present.
While his works can function as abstract, they are very much rooted in physicality and the possibilities that are inherent in the materials themselves...
For Untitled, Caesar encased recycled objects such as scraps of plywood, paper or cloth in resin and then cut and reassembled the pieces into abstract forms...
Jardín (2013) refers to environmental destruction, specifically the preponderance of disposable plastics, as well as Medellín’s long history of dangerous conflict; it was once considered the most violent city in the world because of the drug trafficking there...