Tejal Shah (b. 1979)

This lot was a collaborative work by the artists Varsha Nair and Tejal Shah; not as stated in the catalogue. Very good overall condition. Each image seperately framed in white.
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The five photographs in the ongoing series Encounter(s) document performances undertaken by Bombay-based Tejal Shah and Bangkok-based Varsha Nair about the emotional dislocations tendered by spatial dislodgment. In an email dialogue the artists shared their respective interest in hysteria and loneliness within the teeming cities they live in. The disquieting slippage between a place where we should feel at home and the sense that it is, of some level, definitively unhomely provided the starting point for the series of performances in Glasgow, Turin and London.

Straitjacketed in white fabric costumes, attached with extra-long sleeves Nair and Shah align their bodies to various architectural spaces around the world. Their performances underscore that barriers can be transcended and hurdles negotiated, that corners are bent and gaps maneuvered in a desire to maintain vital connections and exchanges. 

Tejal Shah has emerged as one of the most radical and challenging artists of her generation. Her work, informed by feminist and queer theory moves effortlessly between video, photography and performance. Shah's protagonists are often women, transgendered or transsexual people – historically marginalized – who push forth in unlikely directions in the narratives she sets up.

Shah has had solo exhibitions in Bombay, Berlin and New York and her work is in several national and international collections including the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. (Deeksha Nath, Curator and critic, Mumbai).