Aditya Pande at Alexia Goethe

Aditya Pande at Alexia Goethe

01 June, 2009
by: Katuschka

If you're the kind of person who looks at a painting and says 'Hey, I wonder what that painting would say if it could talk', then your friends probably don't invite you to galleries much, and probably call you special behind your back. However, artist Aditya Pande, a fellow ponderer, has taken it upon himself to give his paintings a voice (well, soundtrack) in his show at Alexia Goethe. Pande's medium ranges from screen printing to vector graphics (often with at least five mediums per piece) and nicely demonstrates how computer graphics can be used to form thought-provoking fine art with depth and complexity.  

Much like buying a pair of pre-distressed designer jeans, Pande's work has more substance behind it than appearance would have you believe. Behind the bulbous, childlike characters he summons from skeins of snarled, hair-like vector graphics and the flotsam of '80s wallpaper, his work is sutured together with neon piping (Great Greedy Guts), embellished with intricate gold-leaf patterns and collaged to an inch of its life until all layers have melted into a gooey fondue of abstract significance (I'm Not Bad). His work is chaotic and random, structured using only bare hints of outline, but gradually as you stare into the core of the colour and mess, recognisable shapes emerge – faces, foetuses and insects... In the same way a Rorschach test catches on a memory, Pande's work unfolds to let you in to its farcical narratives.

Upstairs are Pande's sound paintings (Thought, Said, Heard and Meant), each one a different coloured impression of a baby's face superimposed on an apple (of course) with iPod headphones hanging from the wall, and an accompanying painting to contemplate whilst you listen. Using sound and art in this way allows the artist to wield a little control over the viewer's experience – no clinking glasses, no tapping heels and no 'Oh yah, I have three Hirsts at home, we hang them in the bathroom.' – simply immersion in an alternative subconscious and the artistic equivalent of a Vulcan mind merge. Perhaps a little gimmicky, and you have to wonder if the art is enhanced by adding sound or if it loses some of its power, but the extra dimension has a surprisingly strong influence over the way you view the painting – imagine staring at Munch's Scream with Sunn 0))) blaring or Tracy Emin with Girls Aloud and you get the idea.
 
Altogether, with colour, sound, interaction and creative technology Pande's exhibition is like the fun part of the Science Museum, and a good opportunity to get up close and appropriately personal with some art that rewards a little lingering.

Aditya Pande is at Alexia Goethe until 24th August 2009.   


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Katuschka