About the work

This drawing relates to work made as part of a residency at The Alice Boner Institute, Varanasi (2018), through Shelagh Cluett Trust, London.

Filling a large plastic container with Ganges water (Ganga Jal) I began a series of drawings and paintings combining this sacred water with water-colour. Using a single colour, I soaked Indian handmade paper a number of times watching the chemistry of inactive pigment come to life in the water, colour gradually increasing in density. Some of these paintings have been/will be used as a background for fine line drawings and the others remain as themselves: ‘Monochromes’. Having straddled Abstract, Figurative and Conceptual art for the past 30 years, this is the first time I explored total abstraction; reducing the painting to its purest physical elements; colour, form, texture and the conceptual manner in which it was made.

Date and country of birth

1960, GB

About the artist

Born 1960 Jersey, Nicola Durvasula lives and works in Walmer. Graduated from MA Fine Art at Kent Institute of Art & Design, Canterbury (2004); DULCO from Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, Paris (1993); and DNSEP Ecole des Beaux-Arts du Havre (1984). 

Durvasula’s practice over the past thirty years extends from drawing and painting to ceramic sculpture, film and sound. With multiple references to South Asian culture and Eastern philosophy, she has often juxtaposed these elements within a Western aesthetic tradition. Born in Jersey (Channel Islands), Durvasula studied in France during the 1980s, then relocated to Hyderabad, India, in 1992 where she lived for ten years. During this time, through her collaboration with artists and institutions, Durvasula became closely associated with the Indian art scene and has often shown in the context of contemporary Indian art. Her notebooks from the past four years reveal underlying threads that link her work, and the ongoing enquiry into her art practice and Indian philosophy. 

Selected solo exhibitions include I Am Here, Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai (2012); Blame it on the Sun, Rachmaninoff's, London (2011); and Static lines and where they take you, Thomas Erben Gallery, New York (2007). Selected group exhibitions include Red, Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai (2021); Outlines, Austin / Desmond Fine Art, London (2020); Perfect Presence, Joost van den Bergh, London (2019); Thinking Tantra, Drawing Room, London and Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai (2017/16); The Museum of Rhythm, Muzeum Sztuki, Lodz (2016); The Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kerala (2016); The Sahmat Collective: Art and Activism in India since 1989, Smart Museum of Art, Chicago (2013); Home Spun, Devi Art Foundation, Gurgaon (2012); and Watercolour, Tate Britain, London (2011).

Awards and residencies include nomination for the Max Mara Art Prize for Women (7th Edition) in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery London, and the Shelagh Cluett Residency at Alice Boner Institute, Varanasi (2018).