Dewdrops and Sunshine Exhibition

Post

Subscribe

Fri 04 Nov 2011 - Sun 26 Feb 2012

The 'Dewdrops and Sunshine' exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, does more than simply highlight a selection of Ranjani Shettar's sculptural work. It creates an entire environment of peace and wonder for visitors to journey through.

Crossing into the ground floor gallery that houses the exhibition, is like entering a strange sort of forest, filled with living organisms. Ranjani manipulates everyday materials like string, plastics, paper and wire into meaningful shapes, and by doing so makes the ordinary become beautiful. She contrasts natural elements with artificial ones and creates work that appears quite alien. The 'Flames of the Forest' piece in particular, alarms with its simultaneous round, perfection and cankerous, almost living, red, growth.

Rajani's sculpture deals as much with negative space, as it does with positive. Each dangling piece is deliberately distanced from the next causing an interesting shadow play. Her work is delicate and patient and it's fascinating that some of her sculptures suggest movement, even though in reality, they are stationary objects.



With less than a dozen pieces, 'Dewdrops and Sunshine' seems at first, to be a small exhibition but then, when you give yourself time to properly respond to each of the pieces, it's surprising how long you can actually spend there.

There is a publication detailing Rajani's work available from the NGV International's bookstore for $14.95 as well. It's by Alex Baker and discusses the cultural and spiritual concepts behind each sculpture. On the National Gallery of Victoria webpage, you can view a video that demonstrates exactly what is involved in positioning one of Rajani's installations for display.

As they so often do, the National Gallery of Victoria matches their current exhibition with a children's activity so, on January 19th, 2012, kids are invited to use the complimentary craft tables stocked with paper, wire and other found objects to create their own sculptures inspired by 'Dewdrops and Sunshine'.

Adults too can explore their creative side, at a one-off workshop with artistic guide Jill Anderson. The session called 'The Organic and the Human Made' begins at 10:30am on February 18th, 2012 and allows participants to work with others to manufacture their own interpretations of phenomena in the world. All materials are provided and bookings on (03) 8662 1555 are essential. The session costs $40.00.



Ranjani Shettar lives and works in Bangalore, India. She has her Masters in Sculpture and her work is exhibited at galleries all over the world including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art , #home ">MoMA in New York and Art Tower Mito in Japan.

It's important to actually get out to the gallery to view art like this, as it's unusual to see sculptures of such size in even the most dedicated collector's home or corporate foyer.

'Dewdrops and Sunshine' can be found it the contemporary exhibitions space at NGV International on St Kilda Road from Friday, November 4th, 2011 - Sunday, February 26th, 2012

#art
#exhibitions
#free
#galleries
#city
#things_to_see
!date 04/11/2011 -- 26/02/2012
%wnmelbourne