RUCHI BAKSHI SHARMA ART / MOTION / PLAY

SHADOW BOX

A shadow box is like a personal shrine, a three dimensional collage displaying treasured and meaningful images in an artistic assemblage. I make them to create rabbit holes inside everyday reality. According to the legend of the sea, it was considered bad luck for a sailor's shadow to touch land before his body does. Other sailors would create a shadowbox for the departing sailor, which would contain the sailor's "shadow" until he was safely ashore. Since I am drawn to exploring personal history through dreamlike imagery, this form became a way of of memory keeping that allowed me to escape inside these story worlds. The central characters in these boxes play mediators between human and the spirit, quietly witnessing the push and pull of their of lives with an instinctual wisdom, the stories they tell are often allegorical in nature.

The Girl of Equanimity is addressed as the golden one, the truthful one, the even minded one who stands for ceaseless potential. She inspires courage in a person and is always ready to confront thought patterns that cause disconnection with the self, the moon behind her a reminder and symbol of becoming whole.

TOYS

These handmade optical toys, puzzles and gravity defying paper puppets with movable joints help children invent stories and create imaginary worlds. Let the characters invite you into the whimsical realms and delight you with their movement, color, handmade beauty and wit. These processes encourage children to think freely and do creative handwork that is closely linked to parts of the brain that process emotion and memory

.

Framed Art Puzzles

These 54 piece framed art puzzles are portraits of imaginary characters meant to delight and invite children into their whimsical realms. Framed in a teakwood tray, these puzzles can be hung on a wall after the puzzle has been assembled.

Fair Un Fair

Foundation for India Contemporary Arts, India Art Fair, 2018

Fair–un-Fair is a coming together of three artists catalysed by Sudarshan Shetty who invited artists Aradhana Seth and Ruchi Bakshi to participate in the project. It is an imposition of a fair within a fair. It is a space which invites a casual interaction, perhaps reminiscent of a village fair, with three different spaces within the booth. One can have ones picture taken against a constructed backdrop, or create their own stories on a magnetic interactive piece or partake in a ring-toss game to win a prize object.

‘Do or Die’ features 40 esoteric stories centering on the age old karmic algorithm of virtue and vice. Inspired from the practice of fate telling the video sculpture allows the viewer to reflect on one’s journey through many realms of an unfolding cosmos. It also features an interaction piece that encourages the viewer to engage in deductive reasoning as they use magnetic drawings and thought bubbles to tell their own stories.

Odds and Ends - Cabinet Man Aquarium Head

Witness absorbtions video stories

This show was based on working with tangible objects of surrounding realities and how their materiality lies in their inherent ability to witness. My work-table desk-drawer has experienced a wide array of my moods and energy, an entire spectrum which ranged from elated bursts of inspiration to elusive rants of frustration. It has absorbed memories I myself might have forgotten, and its textures are energized and animated by all that it has witnessed. A lot of my investigations have revolved around that momentary switch between stillness and movement, and the manner in which it can be captured. I was interested in investigating this through a series of autobiographical video stories. My relationship with the desk could then be rendered through a medium that so magically conveys and amplifies the multiplicity of the real. This led to my cabinet man, which draws on a certain discourse of the curiosity cabinet as a personal exhibition space. This Cabinet is a philosophical microcosm of my mind. For me, it is the personification of a virtual dream world, a kind of memory theatre inviting the viewer to participate in an exploratory experience.

Optical device to facilitate 'looking in'

I have always been interested in "that which is not seen by the eye". Intrigued by ancient eastern practices, and diverse forms of thought, I seek to explore the sensorial - delving into the cosmic quest that merges the elements of earth, water, fire, air and ether, and the cyclical process of their creation and dissipation. Through personal experiences, and by observing such practices, I feel increasingly aware of the body as a microcosm of the great universe. I was inspired to use the form of the hand wherein the part reflects the whole. Not only is it a form that symbolizes expression but also a tool through which one manifests what one sees with one’s mind. Further, a healing practice that attracted me during my residency in Srilanka was the use of masks to draw out diseases within the individual's body or mind. The sanni yakuma ritual is built around a projective technique which reenacts the interaction between the body and the disease. When the disease becomes embodied, personified as someone that can be seen and communicated with, a process starts to unfold, a knot begins to dissolve. This led me to investigate the physical act of putting on masks, as has been done in story-telling and healing rituals from pre-historic times.I wanted to manifest these meanderings through a figure I return to consistently - an optical box. As an apparatus, it conjures a spatial experience of the emblematic hand seen through a viewfinder lens, offering the looker an opportunity to "Scry" - the act of seeing into a device in the hope of detecting a special message. A simultaneous window, opens yet another coded world to the viewer. On the carved plane of the box, an animated video can be seen through two magnified lenses. Drawn sequentially, images are perceived as movement, based on the principles of after image, depicting disease and its accompanying chaos. This moving image work is accompanied by spoken recitation and sounds that dramatize what is happening inside the Scry Box. To document and visually translate interplanetary rhythms that lend a sense of theatricality to folklore, I was drawn to use totems and mystical diagrams. The idea was to create symbols of communication that would bring about integration of the facets of one's personality that are not well integrated, or perhaps not accepted within. The experience of scrying into this box is meant to provoke a mirror like inner dialogue to take place.

Single channel video, carved wood, ceramic deity eyes, viewfinder lens, magnifying lens, LCD screen and mirrors.

Winds of Change - Interactive Spinning Object

In 2019 Ruchi was invited by Serendipity Art Festival to create a Interactive installation at the art park in Panjim, Goa. Curated by Music Director Sneha Khanwalkar she collaborated with Filmmaker Sanjeev Sharma to make a voice activated whirling device accumulating a collective Intention over time.

AIRDROME

Art, Education & Design Collective

Airdrome is an artist-run platform that materialized out of a collective dream - to rejoice in the spirit of art and to explore its direct relevance to our lives and our communities. Airdrome has an exciting history of celebrating art’s pervasive, participatory nature by creating a coherent environment. We are forging something new and dynamic to further the rapidly changing independent art sector in Mumbai and India. Our intent is to encourage togetherness and collaboration, nurture new partnerships and build significant social capital through these shared artistic experiences.

“The audience is looking for accessible art, artists are keen to think beyond the existing hierarchy of the art world. Somebody has to connect them! “

WORKSHOPS

Press

ruchibakshisharma@gmail.com

+91 9820938322