The Porcelain Rose: Presented by Gallery Espace turns the Mundane into Magnificence
Enriching the supple imagination of both children and adults alike, the online show by Paula Sengupta entitled- ‘The Porcelain Rose’ conjures up wonder from the traditional as well as modern fables like Panchatantra, Aesop, Saint-Exupéry, and Richard Bach.
The exhibition includes Paula’s continuing engagement with chintz, digital photo prints, and animation, a medium she works in for the first time. The works in “The Porcelain Rose”, a name which can be given to any doomed beauty are a space of folly. All flora and fauna are juxtaposed with each other in the most iman=ginable combinations, in which they seldom exist.
As opposed to the forest that abides by the natural order, the works displayed are rife with contrariness, sparking the fantasies in which anything is possible.
Artist’s visit to Tanzania’s Ngorongoro crater in early 2020 made her feel blessed by that “all animals live in perfect consonance”. Yet her first animation short, Sunehra’s Folly, was inspired by the fables of Panchatantra. It is created with haywire material aspirations that unhinge Nature’s pristine design. When Sunehra, the giraffe, borrows alien plumage — of the peahen — not only does he invite ridicule, he also sets off a shrill alarm in the entire forest of Sundar Jaal. Just as the human animal’s reckless destruction of Nature’s design releases multiple, irreversible, boomerang chain reactions.
Found mostly in the Southeast Asian humid rainforest and also in the equatorial region of South Africa, the porcelain rose is succulent plant native to tropical climate. The plant has been the muse of many ceramic artists because of its awe-inspiring appearance and fragility of porcelain. It has been the integral part of Chinese art history.
Images by Galleryespace
