Atul Bhalla '...within/without...' at the Aicon Gallery 23 May - TBC, London

Exhibition Description:

For many living in Delhi, the sacred place water has in Indian tradition can be contrasted with the necessary use of a bottled and sterilized brand. Atul Bhalla's work focuses on the physical, emotive, historical, religious and political manifestations of water within it's urban environment and participates directly in many of the worldwide politics surrounding water today.

Description:

Bhalla works in a variety of media to recreate the many meanings and associations with water that in an industrialized society have become muddied or lost.

This is Atul Bhalla first UK exhibition. He will be displaying six water tanks, each engraved with an unique representative word, such as 'Space', 'Grief' or 'Beauty'. These aquariums are always filleds to the same level, submerging within it a cast (or casts) of a water carrier or conduit.

Bhalla composes these submerged casts of a mixture of cement and sand from the Yamuna river (bonded by Yamuna water), and they become, in effect, water that is both buried within, and held by, water, lending a face to some of water's lesser-considered religious and sociological roles.

Image: Atul Bhalla
BEAUTY
2007
Installation in Yamuna sand, cement, water, gravel and glass
48 x 48 x 24 in.

Full Contact Details:

Aicon Gallery, 8 Heddon Street, London W1B 4BU
Tel: +44 20 7734 7575, Fax: +44 20 7734 0090, london(at) aicongallery.com