Ideally Imprecise
Neha Vedpathak in conversation with Alexander Caspari
Neha Vedpathak, Spring Song, 2024, Plucked Japanese Handmade paper, Acrylic paint, Thread, Acrylic polymer, 167,6 x 160cm
AC: I know you discovered your ‘plucking’ technique with Japanese paper in 2009 and now it forms an essential basis for your work. Could you talk a little about the role of process in your practice and how it informs the work conceptually?
Neha Vedpathak ‘Plucking’ detail
NV: In late 2008, I was in an experimental phase, moving away from painting on canvas to working with several different materials to find a process and medium that resonated with me. During this period, I came upon Japanese handmade paper made with naturally strong mulberry fibers. Its material strength and malleability were very appealing to me. It was while playing with these papers that through a process of trial and error, I invented a technique I call plucking – a process where I separate the fibers of the Japanese handmade paper using a small pushpin.
The process is repetitive and slow and has a meditative quality to it. These aspects of the plucking not only inform the work conceptually but speak to me directly on a personal level. I view my practice as a collaboration between myself and the material. I like to ‘listen’ to the material (paper in this case) and follow its lead.
“I view my practice as a collaboration between myself and the material. I like to ‘listen’ to the material and follow its lead. ”
Neha Vedpathak, Studio Portrait, 2022
AC: Your works resist easy categorization and sit in a somewhat enigmatic space between painting, drawing, and installation. They also speak to different histories of making, from minimal abstraction to land art. Could you speak to the importance of maintaining their complex and layered identity?
NV: I think categorization begets rigidity and I prefer my work to exist in a space of possibilities and boundless scope. Layered complexity or emphasis on fluidity of concept is inherent to my work and practice. I often approach a subject from multiple vantage points and to create space for nuance and contradictions to coexist. Most of us hold a very distinct understanding of our internal and external world. If the work can capture that psychological subtlety of perception it can be very compelling.
AC: You recently had a solo exhibition ‘Time (Constant, Suspended, Collapsed)’ at Flint Institute of Arts, Michigan. Could you expand on how that project arose and how it developed conceptually?
NV: Tracee Glab the curator at the Flint Institute of Art saw my solo show in Detroit in late 2019 and subsequently invited me to show at the FIA in late 2020. The thesis of the show in its earlier stages aimed to understand the concept of ‘time’, through my particular mark-making process of plucking. I was keen to explore the significance of slow making and slow viewing in contest of digital and technological advancements and disruptions. But as the year 2020 unfolded and brought with it the global pandemic the tenor of the show shifted. The show was postponed to 2021, and while I worked through the pandemic, the works began to reflect/reference the somewhat surreal and altered perceptions of time and space experienced by so many. The past, the present and the future seemingly collapsed onto one another, and as such the concept of time-collapse didn’t seem far-fetched. Time (Constant, Suspended, Collapsed) ultimately explores the subjective temporality of time on both a universal and personal scale.
Neha Vedpathak, So many stars in the sky, some of them and some of me, 2018, Plucked Japanese handmade paper, acrylic paint, thread, 203.2 × 203.2 cm
AC: Your work ‘Still I Rise’ is part of the permanent collection of the Detroit Institute of Fine Arts and hangs in their new gallery of Indian and Southeast Asian art. Could you talk a little about how you feel your work dialogues with and speaks to other artworks in the gallery?
NV: I think this is a hard question to answer because when the new Indian and Southeast Asian galleries at the DIA opened most of the works on view were ancient, historic and religious, made over more than a thousand year period. M.F. Hussain and Anish Kapoor were among the other modern and contemporary artists whose works hung alongside mine. In my mind, there is an overarching link that connects these works. In each case, the artists are trying to transcend the medium to evoke/connect with some universal higher energy. In a sense, it is a testament to mankind's yearning for meaning through mark-marking and employing art as a vehicle to achieve religious/ spiritual growth.
Neha Vedpathak, Installation View, What Remains, Encounter (2021)
“I think categorization begets rigidity and I prefer my work to exist in the space of possibilities and boundless scope.”
Neha Vedpathak, Ripe, 2024, Plucked Japanese Handmade paper, Acrylic paint, Thread, Acrylic polymer
48,5 x 43 cm (unframed)
AC: Could you discuss the themes of temporality which are very evident in your work? I am interested in your thoughts about ritual and repetition and the importance of memory and slippage.
NV: I think my upbringing in India has been most influential in informing my understanding of, and shaping my relationship with, rituals and conceptual notions of time. Rituals are comforting and reassuring, making them part of the studio practice has been an organic process. The interconnectedness of time, rituals and repetition is quite alluring as well. In some ways, performing rituals and making art are not dissimilar, where an artist or group of people assign meaning to certain actions, aesthetic beauty arises out of such conceptualization. They are both acts of creation and meaning-making. Time and aspects related to temporality are fundamentally linked to my process both in concept and in terms of the actual time-intensive demand of the work. In a sense plucked paper works can be understood as receptacles of time. For me, what makes the mundane act of repeating a simple gesture of plucking for hundreds of hours using a common tool, a magical regenerative process, is that within that swath of time, there are moments of quietness and stillness, where equanimity exists. Such moments also act as witnesses to life’s creative force.
“In a sense plucked paper works can be understood as receptacles of time.”
AC: Later this year you will have an exhibition alongside Agnes Martin at Cranbrook Art Museum. Could you discuss the resonances and relations with Martin’s paintings that you feel your own work has?
NV: I don’t want to directly compare the work of the great Agnes Martin to mine, but I do feel a strong sense of connectedness to her work, practice, and by extension to Martin herself. Her works are wonderfully subtle and simple yet hold a world of complexity within them. I vividly remember having a very emotional reaction to her work when I first encountered it in 2007 having just recently moved to the United States from India. And to this day Martin’s work continues to be enigmatic and enchanting.
In preparation for the Cranbrook show, I have been researching and studying her work more intently. One connection in our practice is our absolute regard for work and disciplined studio practice. In a certain way, we are both grappling with understanding that which is non-material. We know that Martin was interested in and studied Zen Buddhism and was aware of Tantra. As I researched her work it made me think that in many ways, we are both drinking from the same well, metaphorically speaking. Our works are dissimilar on many accounts as well, for example, although plucking is quite a dexterous technique, I don't hold myself to a high level of precision in my mark-making – leaving room for ambiguity. Our temperaments towards unsuccessful works are also very different. I hope this show will further the conversation around minimalism at this present time and contribute to its understanding from a non-Western perspective.
Neha Vedpathak, Illusion of Threshold, 2024, Plucked Japanese Handmade paper, Acrylic paint, Thread, Acrylic polymer, 84,5 x 82,5 cm (unframed)
“I hope this show will further the conversation around minimalism at this present time and contribute to its understanding from a non-Western perspective. ”
Neha Vedpathak, Forgetting, 2024, Plucked Japanese Handmade paper, Acrylic paint, Thread, Acrylic polymer, 45,7 x 30,5cm (unframed)
AC: In our upcoming exhibition ‘Ideally Imprecise’, you have produced a specific series of work that engages with and subverts histories of minimal abstract painting and gestural expressionism. What do you feel is the symbolic relevance of making pieces that draw on this art historical canon, whilst also complicating it?
NV: The language of minimalism can convey meaning and experiential truth using distilled and restrained formal elements, it can be not only efficient but impactful. This inherent trust in the material object to be transformational has always had a resonance and affinity with me.
I first came to understand the distilled language of geometry and color through the study of Eastern aesthetics and philosophy, in particular through tantric art. Later through the works of mid-twentieth century American artists like Donald Judd, Eva Hesse, Agnes Martin, Robert Irwin and Ana Mendieta to name a few. Many artists of the period were concerned with achieving the idealism of form using postwar factory production materials and techniques. Sometimes the erasure of the hand, an important tenet of the movement, rendered the work impersonal. It is this detachment and precondition to idealism I rebel against. In this specific body of work, I employ the formal language of minimalism while still holding onto the crucial imperfection of the ‘hand’, the bodily traces of which are essential to reading of the work. On a societal level, as we transition to fully incorporating digital technologies and artificial intelligence in most aspects of our modern life, it seems even more urgent to embrace, highlight and celebrate that which encompasses essential human quality, in contrast to the manufactured.
From this perspective, it seems appropriate to set up a closer inspection of Minimalism and Martin’s work, in particular, to discuss and understand reductivism and subtleism from a non-Western mindset. My unique laborious process rejects the cold, aloof rigidity of minimalism while still upholding the higher aspirations of the movement like truth, harmony, simplicity.
“This inherent trust in the material object to be transformational has always had a resonance and affinity with me. ”
Neha Vedpathak
Neha Vedpathak (b. 1982, Pune, India) is a Detroit-based artist who creates sculptural installations and wall reliefs made from paper. Through her studio practice Vedpathak aims to broaden the dialogue and understanding of issues related to identity, spirituality and gender politics. Leading with the material and the inventive processes, she is a chronicler who weaves together inspiration and ideas from politics, feminism, and eastern philosophies. Using a self-invented technique, she calls ‘plucking’, Vedpathak spends hundreds of hours separating the fibers of handmade Japanese paper with a small pin. Vedpathak’s work has gained significant institutional recognition with a recent solo exhibition, ‘Time (Constant, Suspended, Collapsed)’ at Flint Institute of Arts, Michigan and an upcoming show ‘Subtleism: Neha Vedpathak with Agnes Martin’ at Cranbrook Art Museum, Michigan. Her work, ‘Still I Rise’ forms part of the permanent collection of Detroit Institute of Fine Arts and currently hangs in their new gallery of Indian and Southeast Asian art.
Upcoming and recent solo exhibitions include; ‘Subtleism – Neha Vedpathak with Agnes Martin’, Cranbrook Art Museum, Michigan (2024), ‘Neha Vedpathak - Ideally Imprecise’, Encounter, Lisbon (2024), ‘Neha Vedpathak: Creative Force,’ David Klein, Detroit (2023), ‘Neha Vedpathak: I Dwell in Possibility,’ Sundaram Tagore, Singapore (2022),‘ Neha Vedpathak - Time (Constant, Suspended, Collapsed’, Flint Art Museum, Michigan (2021), ‘Surface Rhythms’, Sundaram Tagore Gallery, New York (2020), ‘Into the Woods’, Simone De Sousa Gallery, Detroit (2020), ‘Many Moons, Same Sky’, Simone De Sousa Gallery, Detroit (2019), ‘Of the Land’, N'Namdi Center for Contemporary, Detroit (2018), ‘Bhabha’, The Poetry Foundation, Chicago (2016), ‘The Space Between’, N’Namdi Contemporary, Miami (2013), ‘Neha Vedpathak’, One Prudential Plaza, Chicago (2012). Recent group exhibitions include; ‘Sense of Materiality’, Sundaram Tagore, London (2023), ‘Artist Rooms’, Encounter, Lisbon (2023), ‘Invisible Threads’ Baker Art Museum, Florida (2022), ‘Fermata’ Encounter, London (2022), ‘Emerge’ National Indo American Museum, Lombard (2021), ‘What Remains’, Encounter, London, (2021), ‘Alterations, Activation, Abstraction’, Sundaram Tagore Gallery, New York (2019), ‘Edition 18’, Simone De Sousa Gallery, Detroit (2018), ‘Art on Paper’, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro (2017), ‘Transformation’ (performance), Arizona State University Museum, Arizona (2016).
Vedpathak’s work can be found in important public and private collections internationally including; Detroit Institute of Art, US Embassy Hyderabad, Progressive Art Collection, Camac Art Centre, Czech Academy of Sciences, Bharat Bhavan Arts Center, Madhya Pradesh State Art Museum, Anderson Ranch Arts Centre.