Once, there was a seed
SACHIN GEORGE SEBASTIAN
6 April – 14 May 2021
Monday – Saturday | 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Vadehra Art Gallery
D-53 Defence Colony, New Delhi – 110024
Vadehra Art Gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition by Sachin George Sebastian, who brings new drawings and cut-out sculptures cast in metal and paper in his latest body of work titled Once, there was a seed.
Sebastian has often articulated his long-standing interest in the chaos and clusters of cityscapes and its people through aerial and arterial compositions, expressing the connective tissues between people, places and infrastructural development as mimicking the life of bio-organisms. In this new body of work, Sebastian’s dispositions develop an existential character as he deconstructs the aesthetic logic of his previous constructions in a deeper search for the meaning of all things, incentivized as he is by personal experiences and new parenthood.
In embracing what the artist calls the absurdity of nothingness, Sebastian replaces ideas of order with duality while considering the states and spaces of daily routines. Without the neater categorizations that logic offers, he visualizes us as caught in the intersplicing fluxes of existence, or regions of constant becoming rather than just being. Abandoning the motivations of frenzy and chaos that have contextualized his earlier compositions, these new works attempt to seek balance amongst the endless questioning that emerges from instincts to pursue storytelling along with seeking. For Sebastian, the physical meditations of this body of work mimic his mental quests; for meaning to transpire, he must collect and re-arrange the seemingly pointless fragments of time that when placed particularly zoom out to frame the larger picture, at once graspable and allowing one to travel through life with direction.
Sebastian adds, “The beauty of nothingness is that it is not absurd at all, and absurdity is neither a state of nothingness either. In the title, Once, there was a seed, there is no reference to time, or what seed it is, or what it will grow into; neither to how long will it take, where it came from, what will happen to it. But the seed is there, and so are its stories and curiosities.”
While the show is on view at the gallery, where we’re undertaking strict health, sanitization and social distancing measures to ensure the safety of our visitors, we’re happy to be able to make engaging with the show a virtual possibility as well. To do so, we’re embracing a new immersive 3D digital technology experience via Matterport on our website, which offers a multi-dimensional mapping of the show; a comprehensive exhibition PDF is also available on request. Please write to art@vadehraart.com or call us at +911146103550 to set up an appointment prior to your visit.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Born in Kanhangad, Kerala, in 1985, SACHIN GEORGE SEBASTIAN is a graduate in communication design from the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, in 2006. In 2013, he received the Young Artist Award from the Kempinski Arts Program and the Foundation of Indian Contemporary Art (FICA) awarded him the Emerging Artist Award in 2014. He completed the Pro Helvetia Artist-in-Residence program at Rote Fabrik, Zurich, Switzerland in 2015, the Kempinski Arts Program in Budapest and Berlin in 2014, and also served as an artist-in-residence at BigCi – Australia in 2015. His practice with paper and pop-up books led him to participate in an international artist’s residency at Khoj on The Idea of the Book in 2009, following which he started working as an independent artist.
His work has appeared in several solo and group shows at Vadehra Art Gallery (2016), Exhibit 320 (2012 and 2015), Devi Art Foundation (2015) in New Delhi, Gallery OED (2012 and 2013), Kochi and Birla Academy (2014), Kolkata, as well as an installation preview at India International Centre (IIC), New Delhi, in 2012. His work has also been featured at Sensorium 2018 (2015), the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2015), the Beirut Art Fair (2014), Art Dubai (2013), the Fondazione Pastificio Cerere & Basu Foundation for the Arts - India, Italy, Myanmar (2014) and the India Art Fair (2013 and 2015). In 2020, he was a finalist for the Sovereign Asian Art Prize.
The artist lives and works in Bangalore.
