I recently had a chat with Kavita Issar Batra about Queen of Sheba: The Singapore Sidewalk.
Kavita is an Indo-British artist, for whom Singapore has been home for the
past seven years. She studied art with Ruth Perez in London, James Holdsworth
and David Kelly in Singapore. Her oeuvre spans oil, acrylic, mixed media
paintings, installation and photography. She has collectors in Singapore,
India, Dubai, Europe, Uk, US and Australia.
Below is the gist of our conversation.
Joyotee: Congratulations Kavita. Within a span of 9 months you have
rolled out your second solo and a huge body of works. Do tell us a little about
the making of Queen Of Sheba?
Kavita: The
body of work represented in this exhibition started in late 2012. I found my
gaze being drawn to a whole new world underfoot on the pavements, while out
walking each morning in the neighbourhood we had moved into. I started to record my daily observations with
my phone camera for myself and share with friends through Facebook. This then expanded into the Morning Walk
Montage page to allow a wider community to engage as also on Instagram. This has been an almost daily practice for
over three and a half years, no matter where in the world I find myself. It is
an art practice in itself but also the inspiration behind my paintings and
print making.
End September early October 2015, I
had the first solo exhibition of paintings, I had been working on over a three
year period, inspired by the detritus I collect and observe, “Of Time, the
Elements and their Essence” also held at Intersections Gallery, Singapore. Following on from this, the gallery was keen
to share the Morning walk montage practice that underpins my creative processes
with a wider audience . I too wished to
share ‘my discoveries’ with a wider audience, especially of Singaporeans, an
alternative view of this island that is now my home and muse. This
led to this current exhibition.
‘Queen of Sheba, The Singapore
Sidewalk’ showcases some of the Morning walk montage photographs along with the
musings I put up on Facebook. They have been blown up into limited editions,
Museum quality photographic prints. I
have also been working on some monotype prints using acrylic paint and the bits
of detritus, adding another point of conversation into the exploration of and
to give voice to this often ignored and trampled on ‘world’. Each of these montypes
is unique and cannot be recreated. The
final piece in the show is an abstract,
oversize (160 x 500 cm), mixed media canvas my ‘Ode to the Singapore Sidewalk’
that has provided so much inspiration to me. It is my muse.
My book ’Of Time, the Elements and their
Essence’ 2015 which contains highlights of the montages from over the three
years along with illustrations of how they inform my paintings is also
available. As is the ‘book in the box’ titled ’Queen of Sheba, The Singapore
Sidewalk’ this is 48 of the montages in a loose sheaf of postcard style cards.
Most mornings my husband, our canine companion, Bella and I walk for an hour or
so around the streets of our neighbourhood we try different routes and so this
format allows you to also walk among the montages as you please. At weekends we
walk to and in the Singapore Botanic gardens, a number of montages are from
there too. Both books have been designed and set by very imaginatively
by Brian Loke and printed in Singapore by a local firm. They are available at SS50 each, from the
gallery.
J: Tell
us a little about the title of the show?
K: The title comes
from a game I remember playing with my Mother as a young child. We would have to walk to most places in the
Indian Himalayan hill station I grew up in and to keep me amused my mother
would be the Queen of Sheba requiring me to forage for various things along the
way like a black stone or two red leaves and so on. Working on a book, to
accompany the exhibition last year, I wondered if my penchant for detritus
stems from those long forgotten childhood games. While now, I do not set out to
‘find’, as it is a more spontaneous process. I do not pluck or alter the pieces
I am drawn too. Sometimes, I do collect and bring bits back to my studio and
photograph the montage against whatever painting I am working on at the time. I
only use an iphone camera to allow this spontaneity as I never know when or
where something will catch my eye.
J: Your
process is unique and it’s the observers eye that goes and picks her subjects
and her inspirations on her morning walks. So when do you feel that Kavita
starts emerging from all of this?
K: The individual leaves, tree bark
fragments, withering flowers, fruits and seeds, their shapes, textures, colours
are beautiful in themselves and better than studying text books. At other times
accidental juxtapositions reflect patterns of the macrocosm. The miscellaneous
remnants of our built up and industrial environment also fascinate – the
anthropomorphic line drawing qualities in curiously twisted bits of wire, the
feel of rusted metal bits too parallel the more organic parts of our landscape.
The pavements and surfaces are a canvas for these but increasingly evocative in
themselves. It is the interplay of time, the elements and the essence of each
individual piece that has me hooked. I see metaphors for my own mid-life stage
in the way this interplay takes place. It has changed the way I ‘see’ the world
around me. Often time a thought, a quote, a line of a song some reference will
pop in my head and becomes the thought to accompany the montage. My life
experience obviously colours how I look at what I see.
J: Singapore
while known for its green patches is also doing away with a lot of its greenery
to meet the urban needs. How do you see your work speaking of the times we live
in?
K: When
I first came to Singapore seven years ago, I was captivated by the majestic
trees that line so many of the roads. Singapore is growing vertically at a
bewildering rate, glass and concrete towering over the tree line. The building work happens with minimum
disruption, when it is finished grown trees and mature lawn appear - our city
in a garden. The primary forest that covered Singapore is just a smidgeon now
even the secondary forest cover is shrinking. Yet left untended or untamed in
this climate, nature is quick to reclaim the land. The ‘city’ looks after ‘the garden’, the
detritus swept away and recycled as compost but before that happens time, the
elements and their own essence only determine how these bits die and decompose.
The only thing certain from the moment we are born is that we will die. The
specifics of when and how remain unknown. By slowing down our frenetic pace of
‘life’ becoming more aware of our surroundings, observing natural processes
around us, we can all become more mindful about our own way of living, how we
treat other inhabitants of this planet we call ‘ours’ and hopefully nurture
rather than negate this earth that sustains us all.
J: You
have a niche here and galleries love working with artists who have found that.
Yet in your last collection we saw more of paintings and in this we see a huge
mix of mediums. So how was it received a) by the gallery b) viewer.
K: Marie and Louise at Intersections
have been amazingly supportive and have walked alongside me in this creative
journey. They see the importance of understanding the whole of an artist’s
practice not just what makes commercial sense and for that I am very grateful.
In todays world - the information onslaught, instant gratification culture, the
need to make a living and livelihood – so many demands on our time. However, we
also must claw back that space to just stop for a moment, allow thoughts and
ideas to mingle and spark debate and to enrich our emotional and spiritual
sides
It is very gratifying and humbling
that so many people who come into the gallery feel a natural affinity to what
they see in my art works especially in the installations of the detritus I have
collected. Being able to connect with people of different ages, ethnicities and
life experience is extremely satisfying.
J: You
use your images to catalogue your finds and juxtapose those against some
painted surfaces created by you. These have been captured by your mobile. As an
artist who uses photography as her mediums, I have to ask you, Why your mobile
and not a more serious camera to do the same?
K: I never know when I may come across something that will catch my eye and so I
continue to use my iphone camera to record my finds and take photographs. The
resolution is excellent and as you see in the exhibition the results when
printed are amazing.
J: At
any point do you feel you are actually moving out these subjects from their
natural environment to make something what you see as your creation? Has this
process seemed too contrived and contrary to process of being an observer?
K: People
connect with the montages because there is a freshness to them which wouldn’t
be there if they were contrived. I do not feel I ‘create’ the montages I see my
role more as a facilitator, a note taker and interpreter perhaps. It’s a bit
like the tv programme ‘Britain’s got Talent’ or any such show, I give these
bits of detritus the stage to be the star on.
J: Kavita
thank you for taking the time to answer these questions? While I know you have
told me that your journey enfolds along the way, could we get a privy to what we
can expect from the sidewalks.
K: Joyotee
thank you for taking time to go beyond the visual at the exhibition and in
terms of my process. I never set out to make the detritus on the ground my
muse. Art has always been important to me, even while I worked in HR at
University and in the NHS in the UK , as
a mother to two young children. Since moving to Singapore it has become a way
of life. As to what next, I follow the flow from within.
Friends and art lovers do go and
catch the exhibition, Queen of Sheba: The Singapore Sidewalk, showing now to
28th of August at the, Intersections Gallery 34 Kandahar Street Singapore 198892.
Also available at the Gallery are the books , Of Time, the Elements
and their Essence
priced at $50 and the book in a box Queen of Sheba, The Singapore Sidewalk also
priced at $50 only.
Artists talk by Kavita Issar Batra, on Queen of Sheba- The Singapore Sidewalk,
is at 11am on the 14 August 2016 (Sunday) Please register with the gallery art@intersections.com.sg
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