The work of this exceptional young artist, based in India, is about the play of material solidity and illusion. His first show at Talwar two years ago included a full-size human form that seemed to pass through a gallery wall; for the current show, he has cast his own head in an opaque, waxy substance of a kind used to produce air fresheners, so that the self-portrait will dissolve through slow evaporation. Time and change are also the subjects of other work here, including a burnt drawing that measured the passing of a day with a slow-burning fuse. And the whole, spare, resonant show comes together in a sculpture of a single slender branch bristling with sharp thorns and cast in solid gold; the more alluring illusion is, the more painful it can be.
-Holland Cotter