Art Basel Hong Kong: RESURGŌ | SAVIA MAHAJAN

Savia Mahajan’s project “Resurgō” builds on her exploration of ideas of life, death and rebirth, that she began working on in 2014, with the “Lithified lives” series. Through the medium of sculpture and drawing, Savia reflects on concepts of impermanence, resurgence and the interstices that exist between the eternal polarities of life and death.

In her sculptural books from the “Resurgō series”, Savia has focused primarily on a green colour palette, moving away from a set of diverse experiments with minerals that result in a wide spectrum of colours. The green, which also comes from a range of experimentations with materials, is representative of Mahajan’s investigation into the ideas of growth and resurrection arising from the liminal space. Her intricate ink drawings on handmade and recycled paper are created in direct response to the books, with a sharp focus on lines, divisions and folds. They mirror her preoccupations with detail nuance and material while also forming a connection to geology.

In her other set of sculptures made by using remains left by celebratory sparklers; Savia delves deeper into the ideas of remains and new life. Using the non-combustible ceramic materials that go into the production of ordinary sparklers and platinum, Mahajan has created bouquets of the discarded fireworks. Together, the three sets of work focus on Mahajan’s key preoccupations of remains.