Aastha Patel

Aastha Patel (b. 1996) is a visual artist from Mumbai, currently based in London,UK. She completed her BA in Psychology and Film studies at SIU, India. Her practice is inspired by the psyche and the history of film. In her work she explores the body and its relation to natural formations, and the capacity for images to be transformed into sculptural objects through alternative processes. Aastha wishes to explore how photographs go beyond the digital, into a realm of haptics.

She's looking to understand and critique the patriarchal system that damages the psyche, to return the experience of the body back to the spectator. It is only by making and creating that one can heal. She wants to share this way of being with her viewers and the models she works with.

Upcoming:

3rd-13th July, Off_RCA, Arles 2023, Atelier ALonso, Arles, France
13th-16th July, RCA Graduate Show 2023, Truman Brewery, London, UK
1st July-31st December 2023, Method Gallery (Online), Mumbai, India

Shows and publications:

Two Third Floor exhibitions at Royal College of Art (2022+2023)
Published in Condé Nast Traveller (2020)

I find it hard to separate myself, as a creative, from the apparatus that’s allowing me to create. It is via this lens of the apparatus and materiality that I ground my work. To me, the process and labour – experimentation and error – are as important as the result, if not more.

In my work, I want to achieve a certain lightness of being. If anxiety can be looked at as a metaphorical weight placed onto our mind and body, I want to seek a sense of weightlessness that can be achieved through the process of creating art and by relieving the pressures put on the body by society.

By looking at the body as a material affected by gravity (weight) and light (photography), I am able to critique the patriarchal structures that have shaped my own body and life. This critique enables me to create a physical and conceptual space in which I can locate deeper connections between the body and our environment. May it be the greater outdoors, natural rock formations or even the environment and language of the photographic studio.

In the physical and conceptual space I have created as my art practice, the synthesis of images and material go beyond gender, objectification, and skin becomes fabric. I associate fabrics and textiles with a certain idea of skin and by extension, kinship. A second skin that can be sculpted and moulded; a veil to create a double image, or a canvas to print, stretch and manipulate.

I believe the apparatus of looking, framing, stands and backdrops (and its interaction to the body of the viewer) reduces the distance created between the spectator and the image, forcing them to question the construct of body image and image making.