GALLERY MISSION Sundaram Tagore Gallery is devoted to examining the exchange of ideas between Western and non-Western cultures. With spaces in Hong Kong, Singapore and New York City (in Chelsea and on Madison Avenue), the gallery was the first to focus exclusively on the rise of globalization in contemporary art. The gallery represents painters, sculptors and photographers from around the world. They each work in different mediums and use diverse techniques, but share a passion for cross-cultural dialogue. The gallery is renowned for its support of cultural activities—including poetry readings, book launches, music performances, and film screenings—that further its mission of East-West exchange.
MIYA ANDO A descendant of Bizen sword makers, New York-based artist Miya Ando spent her childhood among Buddhist priests in a temple in Okayama, Japan, and later, in California. Best known for her sublime metal paintings, Ando combines the traditional techniques of her ancestry with modern industrial technology, skillfully transforming sheets of metal into ephemeral, abstract paintings suffused with color. The focus of Ando’s artistic practice is the intrinsic connection between the human sphere and the natural world. “My interest is in creating work that allows viewers to experience a relationship to nature and to be truly in the moment as they encounter the transitory qualities of light,” Ando says. “I want to draw people into a slowed-down environment with work that is experiential and employs the visual vocabulary of natural phenomena and transformation.” Transformation—both in the physical and the metaphysical sense—is the unifying element in all of Ando’s work. To produce the light-reflecting gradients on her metal paintings, Ando applies heat, sandpaper, grinders, acid and patinas to the metal canvases, irrevocably altering the material’s chemical properties. It’s by an almost meditative daily repetition of these techniques that Ando is able to subtract, reduce and distill her concept until it reaches its simplest form. The resulting works explore the duality of metal and its ability to convey strength and permanence, yet in the same instance, capture the fleetingness of light and the transitory nature of all things. Miya Ando has a Bachelor of Arts degree in East Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and attended Yale University to study Buddhist iconography and imagery. She apprenticed with the master metalsmith Hattori Studio in Japan, followed by a residency at Northern California’s Public Art Academy. Her work has been shown worldwide, including at the de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara University, California; in a show curated by Nat Trotman of the Guggenheim Museum; and in an exhibition at the Queens Museum, New York. In 2015, a largescale installation, Emptiness the Sky (Shou-Sugi-Ban), was included in Frontiers Reimagined, a Collateral Event of the 56th Venice Biennale. Miya Ando has produced numerous public commissions, most notably a thirty-foot-tall sculpture in London built from World Trade Center steel to mark the ten-year anniversary of 9/11, for which she was recently nominated for a DARC Award in Best Light Art Installation. Awards include the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, 2012. Born in Los Angeles, 1973 | Lives and works in New York 4
Sea Green Diptych, 2017, pigment, urethane, dye and resin on aluminum, 36 x 72 inches/91.5 x 183 cm 5
Kasumi Mist 3, 2017, dye, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 36 x 36 inches/91.5 x 91.5 cm 6
Kasumi Mist 4, 2017, dye, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 36 x 36 inches/91.5 x 91.5 cm 7
Kasumi Mist 22.13, 2017, dye, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 24 x 24 inches/61 x 61 cm
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Kasumi Mist 22.11, 2017, dye, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 24 x 24 inches/61 x 61 cm 10
Kasumi Mist 22.2, 2017, dye, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 24 x 24 inches/61 x 61 cm 11
KAMOLPAN CHOTVICHAI Kamolpan Chotvichai addresses issues of identity and gender in her photo-based self-portraits. At the same time, she challenges the formal limitations of paper and canvas by meticulously handcutting her images, creating sinuous ribbons along various parts of her anatomy. Her goal is to dissolve her form, based on an understanding of the Buddhist teachings of the three characteristics of existence: anatta (the eternal substance that exists beyond the physical self); dukkha (sorrow and dissatisfaction); and anicca (impermanence). She obliterates her identity, eliminating her face and literally stripping away her physical form, in the process relinquishing attachment to her body. The artist received a Master of Fine Arts degree at Silpakorn University, Bangkok, and has since been awarded numerous scholarships and art prizes. Kamolpan Chotvichai was invited to participate in ON PAPER, a paper art workshop that was part of the ON PAPER—Paper & Nature exhibition at Tama Art University Museum, Tokyo. Group shows include Anthropos: Navigating Human Depth in Thai and Singapore Contemporary Art, Sundaram Tagore Gallery, Singapore and New York, 2013; the 4th Young Artists Talent Art Exhibition 2013, Royal Thai Consulate-General, Los Angeles; the 2012 International Women Arts Exhibition, Lights of Women, Gwangju Museum of Art Kum Namro Wing, Metro Gallery, Korea, 2012; and Frontiers Reimagined, a Collateral Event of the Venice Biennale, 2015. Chotvichai was a featured artist in Thailand Eye at the Saatchi Gallery, London, which closed in January 2016. She has had two solo exhibition on view at Sundaram Tagore Gallery in Chelsea and Singapore. Born in Bangkok, 1986 | Lives and works in Bangkok
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Rupa (Body), 2015, C-type print and hand-cut canvas, 27.2 x 37 inches/69 x 94 cm 13
Sense of Fear, 2015, C-type print and hand-cut canvas, 43.5 x 44.25 inches/111 x 112 cm
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GOLNAZ FATHI Drawing on her extensive training as a calligrapher, Golnaz Fathi uses texts and letters as formal elements, transforming traditional calligraphy into a personal artistic language. She studied classical calligraphy before she established her own style of working, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Graphics from Azad Art University, Tehran, and completing further studies at the Iranian Society of Calligraphy. Fathi works in fine pen, mostly on varnished raw, rectangular, polyptych canvases, in a limited palette of white, black, red and yellow. She layers the surface of the canvas with thousands of minute marks that echo the curvilinear forms of calligraphic letters and words. These intricate lines coalesce into minimalist compositions that can be read in multiple ways—as landscapes, electronic transmissions or atmospheric phenomena. She refrains from titling her works, which allows the viewer free reign to assign his or her own interpretation. The basis of Fathi’s practice is siah-mashq, a traditional exercise in which the calligrapher writes cursive letters across the page in a dense, semi-abstract formation. The letters aren’t meant to form words or convey meaning, but rather strengthen the skill of the scribe. Fathi reinterprets this technique, drawing inspiration from Western and Eastern sources, including American Abstract Expressionism, as well as the work of Iranian and Middle Eastern modernists who pioneered the use of the written word as a pictorial element in the late 1950s and early 1960s. By skillfully combining these various elements, she has created a unique visual language with universal appeal. Golnaz Fathi’s works are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Brighton & Hove Museum, East Sussex, England; Carnegie Mellon University, Doha, Qatar; the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur; the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore; the British Museum, London; the Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi; and the Farjam Collection, Dubai. In 2011, Fathi was chosen as a Young Global Leader Honoree by the World Economic Forum and in 2015, her painting Every Breaking Wave (1) was included in Frontiers Reimagined, a collateral event of the 56th Venice Biennale. Born in Tehran, 1972 | Lives and works in Tehran and Paris 16
Untitled, 2016, ballpoint pen and varnish on canvas, 11.8 x 11.8 inches/30 x 30 cm each 17
ZHENG LU The gravity-defying sculptural works of Zheng Lu are deeply influenced by his study of traditional Chinese calligraphy, an art form he practiced growing up in a literary family. Zheng Lu uses language as a pictorial element, inscribing the surface of his stainless-steel sculptures with thousands of Chinese characters derived from texts and poems of historical significance. To create his metal sculptures, the artist begins with a plaster base. He then laser-cuts characters into metal, and in a fashion similar to linking chainmail, uses heat to connect the pictographs so that they can be shaped to the support. The resulting works are technically astonishing; their fluid, animated forms are charged with the energy (qi) of the universe, belying their steel composite. Zheng Lu graduated from Lu Xun Fine Art Academy, Shenyang, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in sculpture in 2003. In 2007, he received his Master of Fine Arts degree in sculpture from the Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, while also attending an advanced study program at The École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts in Paris. Zheng Lu has participated in numerous exhibitions in China and abroad, including at the Museum on the Seam, Jerusalem; The Ekaterina Cultural Foundation, Moscow; Musée Océanographique, Monaco; Musée Maillol, Paris; the National Museum of China, Beijing; the Long Museum and the Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai. In 2015, the artist had a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, one of the leading institutions in the region. His most recent large-scale solo exhibition, titled Re-sist-ance, was on view at the Long Museum in Shanghai in 2016. Born in Chi Feng, Inner Mongolia, 1978 | Lives and works in Beijing
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Water in Dripping - Yuan, 2016, stainless steel, 34 x 29.1 x 21.3 inches/86 x 74 x 54 cm 19
Water in Dripping - No. 8, 2013, stainless steel, 80.3 x 72.4 x 62.6 inches/204 x 184 x 159 cm
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HASSAN MASSOUDY Classically trained calligrapher Hassan Massoudy inscribes oversized letters in vibrant colors on paper or canvas to create visually compelling works that bring traditional Arabic script into a contemporary context. Massoudy sources words from Eastern and Western authors, poets and philosophers. He selects a passage, which he writes at the bottom of a sheet of paper, then extracts a single word, enlarging it to monumental proportions over the entire surface of the paper. In accordance with tradition, Massoudy makes his own tools and inks, but breaks from the Arabic custom of using only black ink by incorporating a bold palette of blues, greens, yellows and reds. Although executed with the utmost control, his letters are gestural, fluid and charged with energy, as he skillfully transforms the written word into a pictorial element. Massoudy studied classical calligraphy in Baghdad. He moved to France in 1969, continuing his education at the L’École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He has shown his work at The Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C.; the British Museum, London; Musée d’Avranches, France; Centre d’Art Contemporain, Abbaye de Trizay and the Palais des Congrès de Grasse, France. His work is in the collections of the British Museum, London; Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore; and Musée du Quai Branly, Paris. He has also shown at Sharjah Biennale 11, 2013 and in 2015, two of his works were included in Frontiers Reimagined, a collateral event of the 56th Venice Biennale. Born in Najaf, Iraq, 1944 | Lives and works in Paris
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Untitled, 2016, ink and pigment on paper, 29.5 x 21.7 inches/75 x 55.1 cm 23
Untitled, 2011 ink and pigment on paper, 29.5 x 21.7 inches/75 x 55.1 cm 24
Untitled, 2013, ink and pigment on paper, 29.5 x 21.7 inches/75 x 55.1 cm 25
RICARDO MAZAL Ricardo Mazal explores themes of life, death, transformation and regeneration through a multidisciplinary approach to painting that often includes photography and digital technology. The artist’s most recent body of work, Violet, is a series of highly distilled color studies that amplify his longstanding process of reduction, focusing on a singular subject in what is his most refined—and personal—presentation to date. Mazal’s previous studies include a large body of multidisciplinary work inspired by investigations into sacred burial rituals. His next series was inspired by the colorful, billowing prayer flags of Bhutan. With each investigation, Mazal has honed his vision, reducing and distilling his concepts to their simplest form. Ricardo Mazal’s work is included in the collections of the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Arizona; Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City; Museo de Arte Abstracto Manuel Felguérez, Zacatecas, Mexico; Maeght Foundation, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France; and Deutsche Bank, New York and Germany. In 2006, a retrospective of his work was held at the Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City. In 2015, the artist’s work was included in Frontiers Reimagined, a Collateral Event of the 56th Venice Biennale and he had his second solo show at Mexico City’s Centro Cultural Estación Indianilla. Born in Mexico City, 1950 | Lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico and New York
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White Over Violet 3, 2016, oil on linen, 50 x 70 inches/127 x 177.8 cm 27
Violet and Black 1, 2016, oil on linen, 23 x 24 inches/58.4 x 61 cm 28
Violet Blue and Black 1, 2016, oil on linen, 23 x 24 inches/58.4 x 61 cm 29
White Over Violet 5, 2017, oil on linen, 23 x 24 inches/58.4 x 61 cm 30
Violet Red 2, 2016, oil on linen, 23 x 24 inches/58.4 x 61 cm 31
STEVE McCURRY Magnum photographer Steve McCurry is best known for his evocative color images, many of which have become modern icons. Born in 1950 in a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he studied film at Pennsylvania State University. After graduating cum laude he worked as a photojournalist for a local newspaper. Upon visiting India in 1978, the first of countless visits, McCurry embarked on what were to become the formative years of his astonishing career. As the Soviet-Afghan War commenced and Western journalists were prohibited from entering Afghanistan, McCurry crossed the border from Pakistan. He became the first photographer to bring the world images of the Afghan conflict. McCurry has since travelled extensively around the globe for his photographic projects, covering areas of international and civil conflict and documenting ancient traditions, vanishing cultures and contemporary culture. In each of his images he transcends cultural boundaries to capture the essence of human struggle, joy and unguarded moments. Steve McCurry has been honored with some of the most prestigious awards in the industry, including the Robert Capa Gold Medal, National Press Photographers Award, and an unprecedented four first-prize awards from the World Press Photo contest. In 2013 the Minister of French Culture appointed him Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. Most recently, the Royal Photographic Society in London awarded McCurry the Centenary Medal for Lifetime Achievement. McCurry has scores of book and magazine covers and countless exhibitions to his credit. Born in Philadelphia, 1950 | Lives and works in New York
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A young monk runs along the wall over his peers at the Shaolin Monastery in Henah Province, China, 2004, ultrachrome print, 40 x 60 inches/101.6 x 152.4 cm 33
Procession of Nuns, Rangoon, Burma, 1994, ultrachrome print, 40 x 60 inches/101.6 x 152.4 cm
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SOHAN QADRI The late artist, poet and Tantric guru Sohan Qadri was one of the few modern painters of note deeply engaged with spirituality. He abandoned representation early on, incorporating Tantric symbolism and philosophy into his vibrantly colored minimalist works. He began his process by covering the surface of heavy paper with structural effects by soaking it in liquid and carving it in stages with sharp tools while applying inks and dyes. As a result, the paper was transformed from a flat surface into a three-dimensional medium. The repetition of careful incisions on the paper was an integral part of his meditation. Having lived and worked in more than a dozen countries, Qadri was one of India’s many post-Independence artists who form a sprawling diaspora. He once said, “I did not want to confine myself to one place, nation and community….My approach to life has been universal, and so is my art.” Qadri was initiated into yogic practice at age seven in India, his birthplace. In 1965, he left India and began a series of travels that took him to East Africa, North America and Europe. After settling in Copenhagen in the 1970s, Qadri participated in more than forty solo shows, in Mumbai, Vienna, Brussels, London, Oslo, Stockholm, Montreal, Toronto, Los Angeles and New York. Sohan Qadri’s works are included in the British Museum, London; the Peabody Essex Museum, Massachusetts; the Rubin Museum of Art, New York; the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; as well as the private collections of Cirque du Soleil, Heinrich Böll and Dr. Robert Thurman. In 2011, Skira Editore published the monograph Sohan Qadri: The Seer. Born in Chachoki, Punjab, India, 1932; died 2011 | Lived and worked in Copenhagen and Toronto
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Agamas III, 2008, ink and dye on paper, 55 x 39 inches/139.7 x 99.1 cm 37
Tripti I, 2004, ink and dye on paper, 55 x 39 inches/139.7 x 99.1 cm 38
Kama V, 2008, ink and dye on paper, 55 x 39 inches/139.7 x 99.1 cm 39
Adya IV, 2009, ink and dye on paper, 39 x 27 inches/99.1 x 68.6 cm
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SEBASTIAO SALGADO Sebastião Salgado was born in 1944 in Brazil. He lives in Paris, France. Having studied economics, Salgado began his career as a professional photographer in 1973 in Paris, working with several photo agencies including Magnum Photos until 1994, when he and Lélia Wanick Salgado formed Amazonas Images, created exclusively for his work. Salgado has traveled to more than 100 countries for his photographic projects. Beyond press publications, his work has been presented in books such as Other Americas (1986), Sahel: l’homme en détresse (1986), Sahel: el fin del camino (1988), Workers (1993), Terra (1997), Migrations and Portraits (2000), Africa (2007), Genesis (2013) and The Scent of a Dream (2015). Touring exhibitions of this work have been, and continue to be, presented throughout the world. In 2013 the book De ma terre à la Terre (From my land to the planet), a narrative account of Salgado’s life and career, was published, and in 2014, the documentary film The Salt of the Earth, directed by Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, was released. Sebastião Salgado has been awarded numerous major photographic prizes in recognition of his accomplishments. He is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, and among other distinctions, an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In April 2016, Salgado was elected member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France, for the seat previously occupied by Lucien Clergue. In July 2016, he was named Chevalier (Knight) de la Légion d’Honneur, France. Together, Lélia and Sebastião have worked since the 1990s on the restoration of a small part of the Atlantic Forest in the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil. In 1998 they succeeded in turning this land into a nature reserve and created the Instituto Terra. The Instituto is dedicated to a mission of reforestation, conservation and environmental education. Born in Aimorés, Minas Gerais, Brazil, 1944 | Lives and works in Paris
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Iceberg between Paulet Island and the South Shetland Islands in the Weddell Sea, Antarctic Peninsula, 2005, gelatin silver print, 36 x 50 inches/91.5 x 127 cm 43
Southern Right Whale, ValdĂŠs Peninsula, Argentina, 2004, gelatin silver print, 36 x 50 inches/91.5 x 127 cm
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HIROSHI SENJU Japanese-born painter Hiroshi Senju is noted worldwide for his sublime waterfall and cliff images, which are often monumental in scale. He combines a minimalist visual language rooted in Abstract Expressionism with ancient painting techniques unique to Japan. Senju is widely recognized as one of the few contemporary masters of the thousand-yearold nihonga style of painting, using pigments made from minerals, ground stone, shell and corals suspended in animal-hide glue. Evoking a deep sense of calm, his waterfalls, which he creates with incredible delicacy by pouring paint onto mulberry paper on board, conjure not only the appearance of rushing water, but its sound, smell and feel. Hiroshi Senju was the first Asian artist to receive an Honorable Mention Award at the Venice Biennale (1995), and has participated in numerous exhibitions including The New Way of Tea, curated by Alexandra Munroe, at the Japan Society and the Asia Society in New York, 2002; Paintings on Fusuma at the Tokyo National Museum, 2003; and Frontiers Reimagined at the Venice Biennale, 2015. He was recently awarded the Foreign Minister’s Commendation from the Japanese government for contributions to art. In May he will honored with the Isamu Noguchi Award. Public installations include seventy-seven murals at Jukoin, a sub-temple of Daitokuji, a Zen Buddhist temple in Japan, and a monumental waterfall at Haneda Airport in Tokyo. The Benesse Art Site of Naoshima Island also houses two large-scale installations. A twelve-panel waterfall screen is currently on view in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Senju’s work is in the Brooklyn Museum; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art, Toyama, Japan; the Yamatane Museum of Art, Tokyo; Tokyo University of the Arts; and the Kushiro Art Museum, Hokkaido. In 2009, Skira Editore published a monograph of his work titled Hiroshi Senju. The Hiroshi Senju Museum opened in 2011 in Karuizawa, Japan. Born in Tokyo, 1958 | Lives and works in New York 46
Cliff, 2012, natural, acrylic pigments on Japanese mulberry paper, 102 x 71.6 inches/259 x 182 cm 47
Waterfall, 2014, acrylic and fluorescent pigments on Japanese mulberry paper, 102 x 76.3 inches/259 x 194 cm 48
Waterfall, 2016, acrylic and fluorescent pigments on Japanese mulberry paper, 39.4 x 39.4 inches/100 x 100 cm 49
Waterfall, 2014, acrylic pigments on Japanese mulberry paper, 71.6 x 179 inches/182 x 455 cm 50
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CHUN KWANG YOUNG Chun Kwang Young began his career as a painter. He began to experiment with paper sculpture in the mid-1990s and over time his work has evolved in complexity and scale. The development of his signature technique was sparked by a childhood memory of seeing medicinal herbs wrapped in mulberry paper tied into small packages. Chun’s work subtly merges the techniques, materials, and traditional sentiment of his Korean heritage with the conceptual freedom he experienced during his Western education. Chun Kwang Young received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Hongik University, Seoul and a Master of Fine Arts from the Philadelphia College of Art, Pennsylvania. His work is in numerous public collections, including the Rockefeller Foundation and the United Nations, New York; the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C.; the Philadelphia Society Building, Pennsylvania; the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, and the Seoul Museum of Art; the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and the National Museum of Fine Arts, Malta. He was named Artist of the Year by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, in 2001 and in 2009 he was awarded the Presidential Prize in the 41st Korean Culture and Art Prize by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. Born 1944 in Hongchun, Korea | Lives in works in Seongnam, Korea
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Aggregation 16 - OC086, 2016, mixed media with Korean mulberry paper, 64.2 x 51.6 inches/163 x 131 cm 53
Aggregation 16 - NV092, 2016, mixed media with Korean mulberry paper, 59.4 x 59.4 inches/151 x 151 cm 54
Aggregation 15 - MY028, 2015, mixed media with Korean mulberry paper, 74 x 63.4 inches/188 x 161 cm 55
S U N D A R A M TA G O R E G A L L E R I E S new york new york hong kong singapore
547 West 27th Street, New York, NY 10001 • tel 212 677 4520 • gallery@sundaramtagore.com 1100 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10028 • tel 212 288 2889 4/F, 57-59 Hollywood Road, Central, Hong Kong • tel 852 2581 9678 • hongkong@sundaramtagore.com 5 Lock Road 01-05, Gillman Barracks, Singapore 108933 • tel 65 6694 3378 • singapore@sundaramtagore.com
President and curator: Sundaram Tagore Director, New York: Susan McCaffrey Director, Hong Kong: Faina Derman Sales director, Singapore: Melanie Taylor Registrar: Julia Occhiogrosso Designer: Russell Whitehead Contributing editor: Kieran Doherty
W W W. S U N D A R A M TA G O R E . C O M Text © 2017 Sundaram Tagore Gallery Photographs © 2017 Sundaram Tagore Gallery All rights reserved under international copyright conventions. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.