Shambhavi: Lonely Furrow

Riddhi Printers, New Dehli, 2011, 43 pp.

STPI challenged Shambhavi to break fresh new grounds enabling her to experiment with an immense array of print- and paper-making possibilities. Working intensely with STPI’s workshop team, Shambhavi translated her concepts inspired by the frugal lives of farmers from her native land Bihar, India, into powerful, minimalist works using paper. Lonely Furrow proves Shambhavi’s artistic bravery with the integration of new methods and icons in her art, expressing the transient realities of life in a fickle era of materialistic excess.

Shambhavi’s vision of the farmer ploughing a “lonely furrow‟ to plant seeds, illustrates the most fundamental tool, the sickle. The minimalist steel clusters symbolise the communal act of farming whereby its natural deterioration and sturdy structures convey resilience and rustic beauty revealed through the passage of time.

“It is very gratifying to see Shambhavi‟s collaboration with STPI’s workshop team extending her practice in significant ways in this new body of innovative works, which adds an exciting chapter to Shambhavi‟s universal story of the human experience,” said STPI Director, Emi Eu.

Essay by Sanjog Sharan, edited by Roopa Dewan.