Modern Times, an exhibition of new work by Sinta Tantra curated by Guillaume Vandame.
A boy smoking a cigarette. A man playing with forest monkeys. Men and women barefoot and partially clothed walking and freely dancing along dirt paths and through crowded markets.
These are some of the sights experienced by Charlie Chaplin and his brother Sydney upon arriving in Bali in 1932. These rare moments of natural life were documented in a black-and-white film by Chaplin and recall “the golden age” in Balinese history before its Westernisation and fondly remembered by Sinta Tantra’s family.
Initially, “Modern Times” provided a foundation to reflect on Tantra’s work and her ongoing interests in modernity to shape a globalised identity, drawing from her roots in Bali, her early years and education in London, where she continues to live and work, and her travels from Italy to Pakistan. Throughout her journey as an artist, her style has adapted ‘modernity’ as a trope and allegory through her kaleidoscopic vision of colour, light, and form. Masses of monochrome colour become flattened and compressed into sheets or fields, marked by something mechanical and detached with the illusion of being machine-made. References to Art Deco, Bauhaus, Constructivism, and Minimalism create a visual language that interjects these genres with bursts of colour, tropical motifs, and unusual shapes and patterns – in a sense, claiming ownership of a Modernism which is distinctly her own and transcends geopolitical boundaries.
Available online Here
| Duration | 20 March 2020 - 17 May 2020 |
| Times | online |
| Cost | Free |
| Venue | Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery (Melior Place) |
| Address | Melior Place, 2 Melior place, London, SE1 3SZ |
| Contact | 4402088705225 / info@kristinhjellegjerde.com / https://kristinhjellegjerde.com |