M+B is pleased to announce No Lacks, Me and My Shadow, Kaveri Raina's first solo exhibition at the gallery. The exhibition features new paintings by Raina and runs from December 5, 2020 through January 16, 2021, with an opening reception on Saturday, December 5 from noon to 6 pm.
This green memory.
Maybe our introduction by the barn wasn't the first time we met.
Pronouncing Kaw-Vuh-Ree with my Iranian inflection seemed to recall your relatives who had uttered your name. We laughed about how seamlessly I transformed into someone you knew. The thought later came to me: who was speaking through me, and/or where was I calling your name from?
Meanwhile, exchanging stories of our pasts, the greens of the grass seeped into our shadows. The sun eclipsed, the lightless greens silently spoke to the history of events that lead us to find each other there. Observing the stillness of our skewed silhouettes onto the Maine landscape, we met once more in a world tethered to the colors of our shadows. I realized where I had called your name from.
The image of water floating in a space shuttle comes to mind.
Catching up, laughing over the phone. You share photos of the paintings you are working on. I often see images of dogs, figures, fruit, and columns fluttering before me, but I surely always see the greens of the hill, the warm light of the library, the moonlight on the lake, and the red flickers of cigarettes on the balcony.
When I travelled to New York to see your show, I saw an orange-lemon in one of your paintings. I thought of Nabokov's "La Veneziana," where a lemon disappears from a table in a living room and reappears a moment later in the painting on the wall. Later that day when I was home, I saw a lemon cast the shadow of an orange onto my dining room table.
The tears falling down my face are from yesterday's cry.
Pedram Sazesh is a close friend of Kaveri Raina. They met at Skowhegan in 2017, where they spent a lot of time together chatting and dancing. Pedram is an artist currently living in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Kaveri Raina's paintings are based on internal dialogues, with words that trigger a feeling or an experience. The sensation of hovering, lingering or swaying, being in a state of in-flux or suspension is a common theme. This body of work extends to deeper psychological moments with the self, wandering into the idea of what could have been, and a few chosen memories shared with others along the way. Working on stretched burlap, Raina paints on the back and front of the material, allowing pigments to seep through the textured surface. The interlocking shapes hint at figuration, with saturated colors used to excavate memories and emotions.
Kaveri Raina (b. 1990, New Delhi, India) received her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2017, she was an artist in residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Her 2020 solo show, Swaying to the Moon, at Patron Gallery in Chicago was an ARTFORUM "Critics' Pick." No Lacks, Me and My Shadow at M+B is Raina's first solo exhibition on the West Coast. Recent group shows include spaceless at Deli Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; garcia, raina, shore, tossin, Luhring Augustine, New York, NY; and Paint School, Shandaken Projects, Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, NY. Recent press includes The New York Times, ARTFORUM, Harper's Magazine, Art Critical and Hyperallergic. Kaveri Raina lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
For inquiries, contact info@mbart.com.