“August Exhibition” was a group exhibition held in 2013 and situated within a residential home in Delhi. It was curated by scenographer and curator Reha Sodhi. The three-part exhibition was comprised of an art exhibition and two site-specific installations within the same space.

The exhibition presented a body of work ranging from multiple series. Works such as ‘Shifting Spaces’, ‘Chiaroscuro’, and ‘Black Drawings’ exhibited linear explorations with orange, white, and black colored oil pastels as a textured medium of mark-making on paper, thereby respectively depicting their distinct visual characteristics. Another work, ‘Linear Drawings 1’ exhibited compositions made through patient, repetitive engagement with lines. Using ink on paper, the work created subtle shifts in tone and rhythm, allowing movement to emerge slowly through the viewer’s gaze rather than through physical motion.

Further, the August Exhibition also presented two site-conditioned engagements within the residential space. Using jute fibre strands against the horizontal seams created by exposed bricks, one of the interventions responded to this innate character of the architectural space through an engagement with the resultant implied grid on the wall. Rather than treating the surface as a neutral background, the site-specific work was made to activate the space based on the spatial narrative and structural conditions of the site.

For more images and context: https://parulguptastudio.com/work/site-specific-august-exhibition-project-jan-path/

Another engagement within the same residential site engaged with stretched printed fabrics upon two hollow openings that existed within an exposed brick wall. The two different fabrics carried their own linear patterns. While one had regular, clearly defined straight stripes, another depicted slightly angular lines. The juxtaposed contrasting lines facilitated a visual dialogue between the constructed lines of the fabric and the natural bricked lines of the wall it stood against. This intervention operates on shifting the viewer’s gaze, making them an active participant in the work and prompting them to discover or notice something that otherwise might have remained overlooked. Additionally, although these site-specific interventions might falsely appear to be minimal, they instead are a result of a very long, complex and challenging process, where one has to continually remain open to the site, and respond with enough clarity and conviction for the making to hold its own within the existing architectural space.

For more images and context:https://parulguptastudio.com/work/project-janpath-window/