SHADOW CROSSING

A threshold, by definition is that place in time or space that is on the cusp of change.

Aarti Vir has long been fascinated by a concept of space that is neither inside nor out, yesterday nor tomorrow, here nor there. To Aarti, the threshold framed by a doorway, represents an interstice, a pause - a moment of stillness, holding within it the certainty of passage, the potential for transformation, epiphany, resurrection or dissolution.

Shadow Crossing references the Indian myth of the tyrannical asura Hiranyakashipu, who cannot be destroyed by weapon, man or beast, nor during the day or night, nor indoors or outdoors. He meets his end when Narasimha, a half-man half- lion avatar of Vishnu dismembers him, with his claws, on a threshold, at dusk. Says Aarti, “Connecting all that is neither here nor there, is the threshold, where the transient transformative moment of the unexpected transpires and where all life is.”

Shadow Crossing is a group of three life-size doorways. Visitors are invited to walk through each successive doorway and as they transit each threshold, reflect upon those intermediate spaces in life that we often pass through obliviously.

AARTI VIR studied painting at the Maharaja Sayajirao University, Vadodara and S N School, University of Hyderabad, and ceramics at the Golden Bridge Pottery, Puducherry. She was awarded the Charles Wallace India Trust scholarship and has apprenticed with Micki Schloessingk, Sandy Lockwood and Gwyn Hanssen Pigott. Aarti is based in Hyderabad and has been an artist-in-residence at the Gaya Ceramic Art Centre, Bali and at FLICAM, Fuping, China. She has exhibited in India, Japan, Australia, Bali, China, South Korea and the US.

www.aartivirceramics.com