Prabhavathi Meppayil: sb/eighteen

Pace Gallery congratulates Prabhavathi Meppayil on her presence at the Biennale of Sydney. Her installation sb/eighteen, (2018) will be on view at the Art Gallery of New South Wales from March 16 through June 11, 2018.

The use of traditional tools which are essentially geometric in form is the focal point of Meppayil’s large-scale installation exhibited in Sydney. sb/eighteen, 2018, consists of gesso and 875 found iron, copper and brass tools, conventionally used by goldsmiths in the application of their craft, carefully assembled on a wall with a pristine white surface. The individual objects are deliberately arranged in a pattern suggesting a low-relief grid, alluding to postwar abstraction and minimalist art where geometric structures were often used to facilitate non-hierarchical methods of organisation.

By taking objects that are commonly used in the process of artisanal manufacture and presenting them as aesthetic, sculptural forms, Meppayil liberates the implements from their intended use, while also retaining vestiges of their individual histories.