For his second solo show at Nature Morte, Martand Khosla delves into the dark underbelly of urban India, the place where pavement dwellers wash dishes in the shadows of luxury high-rises, when the city floods during times of drought. His title refers to the scale of survey maps used to record populations, constructions and geographies, where small gestures stand for things much larger, when control gives way to chaos.

Khosla’s sculptures act as experiments with materials and techniques to be used in his architectural practice, re-cycling waste into luxurious seductions of craftsmanship and allusions. His works are inspired by the constant churning of the citizenry and the energies of its financial manoeuvres. Nothing is immune to these forces: psychology, climate, relationships, structures, paths of circulation, and modes of communication; everything flounders in the gap between the Real and the Surreal.

In his Artist’s Note, Khosla says “My works in this exhibition continue with my on-going investigations of the relationship between architectural planning and urban futures.  The new sculptures—alternating between scales of the cityscape and the more intimate singular architectural objects—explore the forces of political power and the climate that creates, churns and causes turmoil within the city.  In this series of drawings, I am imagining tangential dystopian futures for the cities of the global south. It is my belief that the constantly changing organism of the city can never truly be understood and my art practice is a tool for a critical exploration of the multitude of facets of the city and its inhabitants.

The works showcased traverse the lines between sculpture and object, movement and remnant, material and memory. Inspired by studies of repetition and the human churning of industrialisation, 1:2500 (One is to Twenty-Five Hundred) is Martand Khosla’s attempt at ‘replicating the micro-processes of macro-construction.’

 1:2500 (One is to Twenty-Five Hundred) will be on display till September 21st