Sinking and the Paradox of Staying Afloat
Curated by Loredana Pazzini-Paracciani
October 5 to November 3, 2024
at 333 Galery / Warehouse 30
Emergent Sea
Technique : Multicoloured waste yarns
Size : W 140 cm x L 400 cm
Emergent Sea evokes the first rays of light breaking through after a storm. With colours reminiscent of a rainbow reflected on dark floodwaters, this textile piece exudes a sense of hope and renewal amidst dark circumstances. Vinyaratn's careful weaving interrogates the somber blacks and greys with her signature bright, uplifting tones, offering a message of resilience and optimism in the face of our urgent climate uncertainty.
All the raw material used in this creation come from leftover yarns kept in stock from previous projects, and when viewed from a distance the colourful stray threads suggest an unfinished work, or drips of paint hurriedly splashed across a midnight canvas. As often occurs for the newcomer unfamiliar with Vinyaratn's work, they may experience a sense of shock or wonder at the unexpected medium, which reveals itself upon closer inspection, and reminds us all that, like the burgeoning climate crisis, the Emergent Sea is before you. Where will you stand?
Deluge
Technique : Mixed media
Size : W 140 cm x H 150 cm
Deluge, a manifestation of human impact on the environment, is woven from discarded plastic bottles and scrap yarns. These materials, emblematic of our throwaway culture, are transformed into a textured surface that both critiques and reclaims the waste responsible for exacerbating environmental crises. Drawing on the artist’s personal experience when monsoon rains overwhelmed storm drains clogged with trash and inundated her studio, the work serves as a visceral reminder of how our consumer habits are directly contributing to environmental destruction.
The shimmering surface of Deluge mimics the deceptive allure of fl oodwaters, glistening under the sun as pollution and debris ow beneath the surface. This visual tension invites bystanders into a deeper re action on the invisible consequences of our wastefulness. Drawn to the beauty of the work, the underlying grit forces a reconsideration of how intrinsically consumer waste is accepted as part of the price of our everyday lives—its physical presence here mirrors its pervasive role in global environmental crises.
Inundated
Technique : Mixed media
Size : W 210 cm x H 140 cm
Woven from paper yarn spun from office waste for a previous collection, Inundated ended up submerged during a devastating flood at the artist’s workshop. At first glance, it seemed irreversibly ruined, a symbol of nature’s destructive force. But as the water receded and the fibers dried under fans and sunlight, something extraordinary emerged. The piece retained its structure, yet bore new textures and subtle colour transformations, revealing an unintended layer of beauty shaped by the very disaster that threatened it.
The office paper used in the creation of this piece is shredded A4 copy paper, collected from the business operations of the artist's studio, which invites viewers to look closely and discern numbers and letters as a reconsideration of the mundane and the discarded. This material, once a symbol of bureaucratic routine, is now imbued with a new aesthetic narrative—one that speaks of craftsmanship, patience, and resourcefulness. Each inch of yarn represents roughly an hour of work, re ecting the inherent value of time and manual labor. In its creation and individual history, Inundated re ects resilience, adaptation, and the unexpected beauty and hope that can rise from catastrophe.
Life Finds a Way
Technique : Mixed media
Size : W 220 cm x H 120 cm
Constructed from discarded aluminum cans and waste yarns, and named after a famed utterance by the renowned and fictitious mathematician Dr Ian Malcolm, Life Finds a Way serves as a visual commentary on consumerism and environmental degradation. Vinyaratn gathers materials earmarked for landfills and weaves them into something both intricate and profound, straddling visual states of stone-cold solidity and delicate fl uttering. The piece draws attention to the debris that clutters our world, and challenges viewers to reconsider the undiscovered value of what we throw away.
Each side of the re flective surfaces of woven aluminium captures light in a way that gives the piece an enigmatic allure, balancing the urgent reality of waste and the beautiful potential for renewal. Clusters of waste yarn emerging from the metallic weave impart an organic sensation, redolent of nomadic weeds that find purchase in the most unlikely and unwelcoming spaces, sprouting from cracks in a vertiginous cliff face or amidst sidewalks in concrete jungles.