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Shelly Bahl
Take-Away, 2000 (detail)
Ink on wallpaper,
wood, glass, and ink on paper105" x 102.5" x 16"
Within my art practice I have been exploring the history and exotification of Indian art and culture. My work plays with and questions the practices of Orientalism, kitsch appropriation and the mass-production of culturally specific imagery. I have been deconstructing and re-contextualizing elements from a variety of historical periods and artistic movements. I have used images of women from Hindu temple sculptures and Mughul miniature paintings out of context to question notions of authenticity, as well as to give the original artworks new meanings through technical manipulations.
The installation Take-Away (2000) aims to create a small domestic environment within the art institution, that plays with notions of home décor, exotic motifs and cultural appropriation. In the work, I bring together mass-produced household items and South Asian cultural imagery. This installation explores the current public fascination with Indian Chic in fashion and popular culture, as well as the glorification of ethnic consumerism/ consumption. I am interested in the contemporary transmission of visual culture, and the means through which culturally specific images are appropriated in the public realm.
The wallpaper in the installation is over-printed with cliché South Asian motifs, and the gallery visitors are encouraged to participate in the consumption of these motifs by taking away printed napkins displayed on a tea table.
| Shelly Bahl's artistic practice is primarily in installation art, drawing/painting and video. She is currently participating in group exhibitions at the Canadian Museum of Civilization (Ottawa), and in Toronto at the York Quay Gallery, Meg Gallery and A Space Gallery. She has a BFA from York University (1993) and an MA in Studio Art from New York University (1995), and has been exhibiting in North America for the past 9 years. Bahl is active in the Toronto arts community, and is currently a Curatorial Resident of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario. She was recently the recipient of a Shastri Indo-Canadian Senior Arts Fellowship, for an artist residency and exhibition in India. |
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