“Nature’s beauty is ever present, art helps to uncover, perceive and appreciate it.”
Ranjani Shettar
Tuntoroo, 2014 (detail)
Hand-molded wax, cotton thread, wooden beads and pigments
Ranjani’s works speak with their own unique and elegant language. Refusing to be placed in any preexisting category or a singular viewpoint they seem to emanate a latent force, transforming any place they inhabit. Given the scale and magnitude of their effect, Ranjani’s works often begin in small and surprisingly simple ways—emerging most often from her interest in her materials. Shettar forges a relationship with her materials through sustained contact and proximity. Wood is carved entirely by hand, aided by the simplest tools, allowing for the slow revelation of its hidden possibilities. Motivated by processes that allow this kind of close involvement, her engagement exposes the permeability of the often-distinct thresholds between craft and art, tradition and modernity, the physical and the spiritual, while transforming the simple and mundane into the magical.
“Although Shettar’s abstract sculptures are resonant of more familiar traditions of Western modernist and minimalist sculpture, they are distinctive due to the careful interplay of technique and materials, mostly drawn from local sources.”
Shanay Jhaveri, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
“Referring to nature and using organic materials, Shettar, like Gego and Agnes Martin, has an understanding of the woven grid of textuality: contained in the all-encompassing net is nothing less than the entire universe.”
Catherine deZegher
“The driving force behind Ranjani Shettar’s work is a poetics of space. Whether destined for public, private, or even intimate settings, her art take account of the physical-almost molecular, organic-and emotional nature of the space in question.”
Philippe Vergne
“Shettar’s installations offer moments to reflect on what it means to be connected to something, whether that connection occurs between human beings and the natural landscape, individual consciousness and cosmic awareness, or local traditions and global imperatives.”
Helen Molesworth
“Ranjani’s work is not…an answer to issues in the minds of Western writers but constitutes its own delighted exploration of materials and space.”
ARTFORUM
ʺShettar has the ability to infuse inert materials with life. ʺ
ART IN AMERICA
“Shettar’s works resonates with an ephemeral beauty that is found in nature. The dynamic forms and texture seduce with their beauty.”
THE SUNDAY GUARDIAN
“The artist’s work…speaks elegiacally to environmental loss, to historic relationships with the earth…”
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Ranjani Shettar’s works are in many prestigious museum collections and have been the subject of several solo presentations including at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (The MET) (2018), The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC (2019), National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia (2011), The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA) (2009), The Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX (2008-9) and The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Boston, MA (2008). Ranjani’s works have also been featured in exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), NY; Kiran Nadar Museum, New Delhi; The Art Institute of Chicago, IL; 55th Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, PA; 5th Moscow Biennale; 10th Liverpool Biennial, UK; 9th Lyon Biennial, France; 8th Sharjah Biennial, UAE; 15th Sydney Biennale, Australia; Art Tower Mito, Japan, Artpace, Texas; Cartier Fondation, Paris; Sainsbury Center, UK; Hermes Fondation, Singapore; Wexner Center, OH; The Walker Art Center, MN; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino, Italy and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York. In collaboration with The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York Shettar created a limited-edition project, Varsha and more recently was invited to create a special print for the MET 150, to commemorate The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 150th anniversary.
Ranjani Shettar (b. 1977 Bangalore, India) lives and works in Karnataka, India.
Currently, the Barbican Centre has Cloud songs on the horizon on view, Shettar’s first major institutional show in Europe featuring a series of new, large-scale suspended sculptures across the entirety of their Conservatory.
Moon dancers | 2023
Stainless steel, muslin, madder root and natural pomegranate pigments
Dimensions Variable (In 9 parts)
109” x 35” x 32” | 42” x 69” x 23” | 23” x 23” x 23”
18” x 16.5” x 16.5” | 18” x 16.5” x 16.5” | 15” x 15” x 15”
38” x 46” x 41” | 40” x 44” x 39” | 35” x 37” x 32”
Cloud songs on the horizon | 2023
Stainless steel, muslin fabric and lacquer
Dimensions Variable (In 7 parts)
56” x 45” x 35” | 50” x 42” x 34” | 58” x 54” x 13” | 57” x 56” x 12”
36” x 38” x 11” | 72” x 30” x 6” | 82” x 32” x 10”
Above the crest | 2022
Teak wood and steel
69.25″ x 13.25″ x 29.75″
Seven ponds and a few raindrops, 2017
Stainless steel, dyed muslin, tamarind seed powder paste
Midmorning blooms, 2020
Teak wood and steel
89" x 113" x 50"
Sundew, 2023
Lacquered wood and pigments
96" x 336" x 5"
Adagio, 2021
Teak wood
28.5" x 104" x 20.50"
From under and above, 2018-2019
Teak wood
76" x 24" x 48"
Peppercorn, 2018
Teak wood and lacquered wood
23 1/2” x 24” x 3 1/2”
Meandering lines, searching rivers, 2017
Walnut wood
120 1/4” x 345” x 2 3/4”
Bubble trap and a double bow, 2016
Walnut wood and paint
38" x 111''
Honeysuckle and Mercury in a Thick Midnight Plot, 2016
Rosewood, teak wood and stainless steel
90" x 112" x 21"
Tendu, 2013-2014
Walnut wood
118 3/4" x 68 1/2" x 24"
Torque, 2013
Rosewood
18" x 97" x 13"
Between the sky and earth, 2013-2014
Teakwood (in 6 parts)
Largest dimensions: 55" x 16" x 6"
Smallest dimensions: 28" x 15" x 17"
Lattice, 2016
Stainless steel, dyed muslin fabric and tamarind kernel paste
39” x 4"
Tuntoroo, 2014
Hand-molded wax, cotton thread, wooden beads and pigments
131" x 188" x 135"
High tide for a blue moon, 2012
Coffe plant and automobile paint
91" x 128"
Remanence from last night's dream, 2011-16
Rosewood, lacquered wood and pigments
72” x 50" x 35”
Aureole, 2010
Cast Bronze
Harp, 2009
Stainless steel, muslin, tamarind kernel, and wood
46" x 33" x 6 1/4"
Sing along, 2008-2009
Muslin dyed in kasimi, tamarind kernel paste, shellac, stainless steel
202″ x 318″ x 491″
Liquid Walk on my Wall, 2008
Carved Burmese teak wood, wax polish and lacquered wood
Sun-sneezers blow light bubbles, 2007-2008
Stainless steel, muslin cloth, tamarind kernel powder paste, lacquer
192" x 288" 168"
Fire in the Belly, 2007
Wood, automobile paint, stainless steel, and fishline
120" x 156" x 138"
Me, No, Not Me, Buy Me, Eat Me, Wear Me, Have Me, Me, No, Not Me, 2006-2007
Mild steel (cut out of old car bodies), metal paste
In 5 parts:
33″ x 41″ x 44″ | 27″ x 44″ x 46″ | 24″ x 34″ x 33″
45″ x 80″ x 64″ | 28″ x 34″ x 36″
I am no one to tell you what not to do, 2006
Woodcut print
95" x 39"
Just a bit more, 2006
Hand-molded beeswax, pigments, and thread dyed in tea
288" x 432" x 144"
Heliotropes, 2005-11
Vulcanized Latex, cotton thread and steel
85" x 168"
Vasanta, 2004
Beeswax, pigments, tea dyed strings
288" x 155"
IN BLOOM, 2004
Wooden lacquered beads, glass beads, strings, fishing line
96" x 84"
Transitions, 2003
Neem wood, silicone, fish line, gulagangi seeds
39" x 60" x 36"
Flow Into Me, 2000
PVC pipe, steel wire
42" x 96" x 18"
