Yavuz Fine Art is pleased to present multi-disciplinary artist Ketna Patel, in her break-through solo exhibition Heterotopia 2012. Presenting new works, Patel uses grand narratives and references to renaissance paintings that are embedded in all our collective consciousness. She attempts to flatten time, blur geographical boundaries, and bring to the fore a certain ‘consumption’ of contemporary culture that seems to be at a major penultimate moment before it eats itself into oblivion. There is beauty and death in this moment, and underneath it all, a small seed of a new beginning.
In Heterotopia 2012 - using mediums of paintings, graphic prints and sculptures - Patel prods and pokes at the collective global bewilderment our civilization is presently facing. As previously upheld ideologies and financial systems topple, we are left gawking at twisted and unprecedented episodes of life unfolding all around us at lightning speed. Patel refers to the essay, Of Other Spaces, written by Michel Foucault in 1967, which has helped crystallize an ongoing polemic about our ‘re-mix’ society. A society where nothing is original, and we swim, even wallow in the fragmentary and chaotic currents of change, forever legitimizing our expressions by references to the past.
In this exhibition, Ketna is viewing life in a more metaphysical way. She is remembering that yesterday’s life (fossils of once living beings) is today’s energy (petrol and gas), and possibly the death of tomorrow (the assault on nature). According to the Hindu concept of time cycles, we are presently living in the ‘Kali-yuga’; the age of hypocrisy. The myth has superseded the truth, resulting in a world brimming with ‘truth lies’. She questions “Who and what is controlling us? How much of us is conditioned, and how much is ‘original’? Are we cogs in a giant, irreversible wheel? Have Institutions and Corporations become so powerful that even in the information age, we cannot hear our own realizations?”
The exhibition title Heterotopia 2012, is a concept of ‘spaces of otherness’, which are neither here nor there, that are simultaneously physical and mental, such as the moment you wake up after a dream, or the moment when you see yourself in the mirror. It could also be a moment of realization, which we individually observe; a moment of understanding that our beautiful and complex civilization is pregnant with death.
Ketna Patel (b. 1968 in Uganda, Africa), describes herself as happily culturally schizophrenic, yet deeply grounded in an evolving Asian culture. Having studied Architecture and Design in London, she has experimented with many forms of expression, blurring the lines between lifestyle, art and design. Containing strong social messages, her work is never insipid, and often hilarious. However, it is not only the figures and architectural elements of Patel’s art that are striking, her use of texts, both newspapers, advertising and road signage – in all Asian languages, is also important. “Words – slogans, mottos or mission statements – seem to be replacing visual narrative in many ways. Words are the glue that hold up the pictures.”
Patel has participated in talks, workshops and exhibitions world-wide. Her works have been collected by numerous institutions and international private collections.
In conjunction with Heterotopia 2012, Yavuz Fine Art will present Ketna Patel & Friends in Conversation, a round table discussion on Art, Asia and our rapidly changing world. The public is invited to attend and participate in the question and answer session on Saturday, 8 September at 3pm.
