Motivated by the search for social and environmental inquiries through an oeuvre that incorporates sculpture, painting, installation, video, photography and performance, Atul Bhalla has for decades explored the physical, historical and political significance of materials and materiality in urban-impact environments. His practice explores the shifting dynamics of landscapes due to various contextual and cultural factors, leading to examinations of mainstream systems that perpetuate imbalances and extremities not only in how the Earth’s climatic conditions have been adversely altered and affected but also how, among humans, the politics of resources has skewed access and ownership across communities. Bhalla asks of his audience urgent questions that feel as poetic as they do political: What is our relationship to land? What does water mean to us? Who does a tree belong to? Such a biopolitical approach to understanding land and water fosters a unique approach to materiality in his process, creating situations of experience in a manner encompassed by the art historical term of “relational aesthetics”, or participatory art that concerns all of human life and its shared contexts. In this way, Bhalla’s investigations of natural elements and occurrences are both scenic and sardonic in nature; as he juxtaposes the seeming self-sufficiency of nature against our own vulnerability, he lulls us in the momentary silence before an inevitable storm that has been, perhaps, a millennia in the making.
9 November 2023
