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SAMANTA BATRA MEHTA
Redux // Search for the Empyrean #1 , 2021
archival print on paper
Ed. 3 of 5
22 x 30 in.
SM - 01
Redux // Search for the Empyrean #2, 2021
archival print on paper
Ed. 3 of 5
22 x 30 in.
SM - 02
Biography
Samanta Batra Mehta's work has been exhibited in the US and abroad including at the Queens Museum of the Arts, the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts and Aicon Gallery in New York, the Hunterdon Museum and the Visual Arts Center in New Jersey, the Taubman Museum of Art in Virgina, and Fondazione Fotografia Cassa di Risparmio di Modena, Italy, among others. Galerie LMD, Paris showcased her 24 foot long site-specific mural at the Salon Du Dessin Contemporain, at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris. Her work was included in the ‘Reading Room’, a Partner Exhibition at the Kochi Biennale 2014 in Kochi, India. Apart from gallery shows, Samanta’s work has been showcased at leading art fairs including at Art Stage, Singapore (2010), India Art Fair, New Delhi (2011-2016), Bologna Arte Fiere 2013, Art Basel Hong Kong in 2014 and 2015 and Art Dubai (2016). Her first solo, ’Cabinet of Curiosities’, with Shrine Empire, New Delhi in 2014 was nominated for the Forbes India Art Award in the ‘Best Debut Solo’ category. She was awarded the Joan Mitchell Foundation's 2014-2015 Painters & Sculptors Grant Award and recently participated at Wave Hill's 2020 Winter Workspace Residency in New York. Her works are included in private and public collections including at Fondazione Fotografia Cassa di Risparmio di Modena in Italy, the RPG Group, India, The Jindal Collection, India, the Birla Art Foundation, India among others.
About the Work
The art works, Redux // Search for the Empyrean 1 & 2 is a journey from which we emerge and to which we find our way back to. In Ancient Rome, the word redux was used in conjunction with Goddess Fortuna as one who brings another safely home. Empyrean in ancient cosmologies refers to the source of light and creation, the essential dwelling place of the seed of creation, the heaven of heavens. These works are both, a manifesto of hope, a quest and a clarion call to find our way back to oneself and to redefine our relationships (of domination/control, consumption/disposability into relationships of responsibility/stewardship of the self/other). In this utopian idea, the existing toxic structures of human oppression and plunder of planetary resources is reimagined into an unfolding of our essential inner selves with a co-creation of an expansive, symbiotic, interconnected system that is equitable, just and fair.