OH Projects Boston

Previous Projects

Kanishka Raja

Drawings

Exhibition Dates:
April 14 - May 26, 2011

Reception:
Friday, April 15, 6 - 8 pm

Location:
Drive-By, 81 Spring Street in Watertown, MA

Hours:
Thursdays 12-4pm
We're also available by appointment.

Drive-By is pleased to present an exhibition of new drawings by Kanishka Raja. Raja's works on paper reflect his skillful manipulation of perspective, pattern, scale and color. Dense with information and art historical references, these drawingscontinously inform each other to create a quasi-narrative series.

Raja refers to his drawings as "large-scale notebooks" that aid him in the transition from the factual beginnings of the work (images appropriated from the newspaper) to the production of his final paintings. As in his paintings, Raja drawings combine spatially ambiguous landscapes with unexpected points of view. These effects serve to orchestrate a dramatic, even hair-raising, visual and psychological experience.

In KR 25, 2011 the viewer teeters on the edge of a space that seems to dematerialize before his or her eyes. On the left side of the drawing, a lattice screen flanks a central shaft that is broken up by hanging cubicles, duct-work and linear circuitry. On the right, the drawing dissolves into a maze of broken line-work reminiscent of abstract expressionist drawings.

KR 26, 2011 is the pictorial counterpart to KR 25, 2011. In place of multi-point perspective, Raja positions the viewer above a plane of ornamental rectangles that extends towards a single unseen point. Beneath, rainbow-hued wires snake into the distance as a maze of geometric marks descends below.

Kanishka Raja is a Calcutta-born artist who is currently based in New York. A longtime Boston artist, he was awarded the prestigious ICA/Digitas Prize in 2004 and has exhibited extensively in Boston, New York, and internationally. Raja's most recent solo exhibitions have been at Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York and Galerie Mirchandani + Steinrücke, Mumbai. His exhibition record includes the ICA, Boston, The Rose Art Museum, Waltham, ICA, Philadelphia, the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi and The Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai. Raja's work has been written about extensively in Artforum, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Art In America and The Boston Globe, among others and his work is in the collection of the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University. Kanishka Raja is represented by Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York.