Plastic Surgery

Chishti,who has a solo show coming up at Gallery Seven,was moved to work with plastic after a visit to New York where he witnessed “plastic bags outnumbering people”. The Delhi-based Atul Bhalla has been engaged with the politics of plastic since the early 1990s. His solo exhibition Remaking the River,that showed in Delhi and Mumbai in 2008,dealt with the environmental degradation of the Yamuna. He is currently working on a theme involving “holy water” being handed out in plastic bottles at sites like Rishikesh and Hardwar. “I am focusing on the 1litre bottles used to take away holy water. I have sculpted an enlarged bottle,using waste wood,and titled the work Nothing Reached Home,” says Bhalla about the 5x3x4 ft work. “The wood was collected from discarded door frames and it is a double remark on how the ‘holy water’ is travelling all over the place in plastic bottles instead of reaching the trees which are also being hacked mercilessly.” In another project,involving the ghats of Patna,he floated words carved from plastic in the water.

New York-based artist-curator Jane Slade,whose work is a reflection of just one year of her visit to India,has also tapped into the idea of using recycled plastic to create art. “My lighting installations use plastic bottles through which I try to convey a range of emotions like love,desire and anger,” says Slade,who calls herself an environmental designer and is currently showing at Paint Brush and Chisel in Delhi. Her works involve re-using discarded plastic to create lighting fixtures that give out a variety of coloured lights to express emotions like anger and love.

“I am not sure that in each case where artists have employed plastic,it is an environmental statement. It is also about the textures of everyday life that reflects contemporary urban deficits,” says art critic Ranjit Hoskote. “These tropes refer to waste and recycling modes by which we conduct our lives socially and politically,” he concludes.

Curated For You

Dhurandhar Box Office Collection Day 23 Update: Ranveer Singh’s film crosses Rs 16 cr on 4th Sunday; earns Rs 1,051.6 cr worldwide

Neena Gupta prefers to carry homemade food on flight, shares ‘today’s plane menu’

Assam SIR 2026 Voter List: How to check your name online in SIR 2026 Voter List