Rithika Merchant works primarily with gouache and ink on paper to create mosaics of myths across time and space. These myths serve as allegories to articulate contemporary concerns. Currently based in Barcelona, Merchant has witnesses the tragedy of the refugee crisis up-close. This has informed her latest body of work where she takes it a step further by looking at the very essence of migration within the context of civilizations. The works being exhibited at India Art Fair 2018 are a part of this series and were previously shown at an exhibition at the Swiss Cottage Gallery, London. Saubiya Chasmawala uses found images and text in her immensely detailed and practice oriented work that explores configurations of self-identity in relation to constructs such as gender and religion. At the fair, Chasmawala will be presenting a selection from her body of work exhibited in a collaborative exhibition between TARQ and Clark House Initiative, Mumbai in September 2017. Soghra Khurasani works primarily within the medium of print making. Her woodblock prints express her contemplation of the female body as a sight of both violence and fecundity, which she expresses through the metaphor of landscapes. For India Art Fair 2018, Khurasani has created a series of works inspired by Tehran and the Alborz mountains that run through the Khorasan region of Iran, the land of her ancestors. This body of work was conceived during her time at the Kooskh artist residency in Tehran. She juxtaposes the tumultuous history of Tehran and the youth’s troubled relationship to their history with the enduring sturdiness of the mountains to comment on the tenacity of the human spirit.
