Untitled

Manish Nai is known for works that reveal an abiding preoccupation with texture, layering and three-dimensionality. In a range of sculptures, paintings and murals, he has produced out of rugged jute fabric works of quiet and contemplative beauty. The son of a burlap and packing materials dealer, Nai’s experiments started in the final year of art school when he began to integrate jute into his canvases. He first created abstract paintings by using a jute fabric base from which he removed threads to reveal abstract patterns. Eventually, these led to sculptures made by compressing and molding burlap into cubes, creating highly textured yet minimalist sculptures through an unpredictable and time-consuming process.One of Nai’s exhibits is an untitled sculpture (2014) made of molded Indigo blue jute. Nai here deviates for the first time from rectangular sculptures, exploring a more technically challenging circular form. The result is a heavily compressed, earthy sculpture that evokes associations with nature– from a whirling oceanic pool to a calm night sky. Also displayed is another untitled work (2014)– an abstract mural subtly traced onto a specially prepared pale grey wall. Nai’s murals begin as hand drawings. These are then converted into a digital form and copied on to stencils that are used to create dark grey and white patterns directly on the wall, creating a three-dimensional effect. The layered pixels branch out from a hollow centre, evoking both the serenity of a distant starburst and the vigorous outward expansion of a human settlement viewed from above.