Statement
Currently using various media to explore notions of ‘witness’ and ‘melancholia,’ Kulvinder is drawn to examining near-to-almost-epic events from an emotive point of view, rather than a simply descriptive one. Interested in the distance[s] between landscape, personal context, drawing, painting, image and response, Ms. Kaur Dhew attempts to engage the viewer through memories of their own paths into or out of the natural environment. ‘Nature’ in this case, is utilized metaphorically for any number of contemporary concerns.
Bio
Kulvinder Kaur Dhew was born and raised in England. Since receiving her MA in Painting at The Royal College of Art in London, she has taught at universities in New Zealand, Borneo, and the United States. Kulvinder’s work is included in collections as diverse as Kazuo Ishiguru and MTV Europe. Kaur Dhew has received numerous Residencies including the prestigious Delfina Trust in London, ARCO in Lisbon, and most recently at Vermont Studio Center.
___________________________________________________________________Drawing
I am interested in the human condition and its symbolic
resonance within elemental iconography.
For me, the ‘storm’ represents the Sufic whirling dervish,
an event of union between intellectual heaven and sensuous earth. This collision is made tangible through
the act of drawing. The variations
found within storm systems are a moveable feast and provide a rich and engaging
source for the visual carrier of emotion and narrative. I utilize the practice of drawing as a
vehicle to understand and express something poignant about the worlds in which
we dwell. Forming the basis for narrative in my work, I view those worlds as
imperfect.
I use principles of various philosophical theorem (Eastern
and Western) as the system in which the mark is witnessed as trace. Specifically, I am curious about the pyscho-perceptual
qualities that are generated by this interaction. The drawings are constructed in order to question the relationship
between the image (as metaphor) and the energy contained in the meeting.
Certain passages within the work are able to express the
fleeting truths that we experience when dreaming. Storms then become manifestations of primordial, present and
futuristic passage. Timeless and
seductive.
Another central viewpoint of my studio-based research is the
consideration of the ‘spatial’ as presented through the process of
drawing. On analysis, this
ultimately has to do with time and my relationship to it as a temporal being. The resultant material qualities have
begun to provide some evidence of a personal historical nature.
The recent work has been a response to natural phenomenon as
witnessed from a static point as it shifts infinitely, in constant
maelstrom. Elemental ideas of
diffusion, suspension and reflection are key concerns that contribute to the
final dynamic of the work.
The drawings convey
metaphors that are both personal and socio-political, exploring atmospheric
qualities of storms that are either brewing or coming to fruition in almost
anonymous landscapes. I have
become interested in the notion of a terrible beauty. The recent works have a
photographic presence, allowing a snapshot implication. Though a melancholic
perspective exists within the concept, the drawings provide a seductive window
through which a viewer can gaze upon chaos. This disconnection can be oddly
unsettling like the unstable times that we live in.
The body of work has evolved through hours of drawing
activity, where vision and intrusion of the mind give way to tactility. This in turn reflects opposing concepts
of ‘something’, a culturally European characteristic and the aesthetic
‘nothing’, a fundamental tenet that underpins Eastern philosophy.
Ultimately, I want to create a synthesis or distillation of
the transformative power of the natural world on the human psyche.
______________________________________________________________________Visual
Engaged by the capacity of image to extol variables, inherent within the material, I acknowledge potential for ‘the new’. For me, the medium is able to support intellectual dialogue at the same time as the visceral gesture/experience. I utilize variable themes and visual styles in order to create a friction or activity between them.
The narratives in my work address the ‘temporal’, witnessed from my standpoint. The images are milestones of direct experience. Constructing symbols of the transient, encountered when dreaming or through direct observation, (data, newspapers, film, travel, etc.), I record these things as archetypal images. Collectively they form the threads and dialogues between works. In some paintings this dialogue is carried through the use of the gesture/mark (as representations of visceral time). They embody an emotional response, layered amongst the manufactured or represented images. They are juxtaposed with intrinsic formal concerns, such as the connections between image, color, form, space, line and surface. These presumably exacting nuances are impossible to define, serving as the challenge for me as an artist.
There are times when I appropriate various techniques of image-making in order to exploit notions that question the nature of art, language and meaning. The body of work is an expression of various dialects within the language of painting. The diaspora to which I belong, provides for and demands complex relationships. These form the texture of my method of expression, which I feel is always about the “in-between” and “the present”. The gestural mark-making represents the perpetual moment in which they were formed, becoming a fingerprint of an emotional, though somewhat mannered, response to the emblematic images within the works.
For some time, I have used the ‘tempest’, manifested literally or metaphorically, in my practices of image making. At times it resides in the action or movement of colors/organization and effect, in the sense of waiting, or a foreboding. The works attempt to express a symbolic dislocation that is central to my life.
Varying qualities of luminosity, as expressed through color, is an important aspect in my art practice. In each country I’ve lived, I have used its particular light to express something of place, like a marker. In turn, I believe light becomes indicative of mental states. The roles and uses of color within the cultures that I have experienced impact my personal palette greatly.
The internal dialogue within my work is structured around concepts of the fragment and segmentation. I am compelled to make sense of a total sum of the parts. The fragmentary aspects of some of the works allow a certain element of chance, in terms of lyrical meaning. However, the more recent pieces show a more determined and specific meeting of parts.
Specifically, I am concerned with interplays between the conscious and unconscious mind.
