By Patricia Frischer
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| Bhavna Mehta - seed studies |
No More Boring Art Lectures: Bhavna Mehta zoom lecture on March 16, 2022
Facilitated by Ryan Bulis of the Boehm Gallery, Palomar College Art Department
First,
I have to declare I am a big fan of Bhavna
Mehta since she was included in the 20214 SDVAN's New
Contemporaries exhibition at Meyer Gallery and then became one of the SDVAN's SD Art
Prize recipients. I even own a small Seed painting and that is why I was
thrilled to learn so much more about this series.
I
loved that this lecture was short and sweet and yes, not boring at all. Bhavna
Mehta found out that both sets of great grandparents were part of a terrible famine in
India in the late 1890s through her reading of Mike Davis’s* book Late Victorian
Holocaust. By holding back seeds of grain for replanting, there was no
shortage of food, but a horrendous lack of distribution that caused what he
calls “The Seeds of the Third World.”
We
learned that the red dot seen on the forehead of Indians is a symbol for the
seed. The idea of the seed, a potent reminder of the cycle of life, became one
of Mehta’s obsessions. I say that with great respect as obsession if often a
highly regarded attribute of an artist. Seeds, 2013 which is 30 by 44 inches
has approximately 60,000 paper cuts to create the positive and negative spaces
of this composition. Mehta said herself, “I am the third generation survivor of the seed of the third world.”
I
appreciated learning about the communal nature of art making in India which was
part of Mehta’s youth. In the beginning she worked in a very solitary way to
create her work, but soon she took inspiration from women using rice flour to
create patterns that were transitory. Three-dimensional paper can be very
fragile as well, but making her larger works became a way to bring people
together. She did this very successfully with projects at Art Produce where she
is considered a permanent artist/writer in residence.
Now
she has also made the leap to other materials and in the Let's talk Now at
the UTube Theater in Inglenook, LA , she was able to see her small studies grow
into permanent architecture sculpture. In the theater VIP lounge, a group of 18
panels measuring a total dimension of 12’ t x 45’ w. made of stainless steel
and colored acrylic waterjet/laser cut, and assembled. Lynn Susholtz consulted
with materials/fabrication and Aragon Construction fabricated and installed the
work which was completed in 2021.
*It
is interesting to note that Mike Davis is the husband of Alessandra Moctezuma,
the gallery director at Mesa Collage.
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| Late Victorian Holocaust by Mike David |
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| Seeds, 2013 which is 30 by 44 inches has approximately 60,000 paper cuts to create the positive and negative spaces of this composition. See larger images and detail below. |
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| Seeds, 2013, details |
