Using thread to mark memories

Sumakshi Singh's recent work features thread renderings of her family's erstwhile home

- Rahul Kumar

Artist Sumakshi Singh's ongoing solo, Afterlife, at the Delhi gallery Exhibit 320 emphasises mark-making through thread. One could call the works on display sculptures but Singh's art does not entrap volume; rather, her work implies it, with the viewer's body encountering it as an apparition rather than an object. "Like most drawings that invite viewers to look not just at them, but through them, to the raw, unaltered background (paper/canvas), my works too have a sense of transparency and an acknowledgment of the background. They use thread as a mark-making tool in the air, offering access to the space behind," she explains. For Singh, the art form has become a process of "drawing out" from within. In this show, she uses it to show the vulnerability of the material form, and as an expression of loss and the search for "home".