Niyeti Chadha Kannal
(b. 1979)
Niyeti Chadha Kannal’s works, in many ways, are a direct outcome of lens-based wanderings into the spectacular labyrinths of growing metropolises like New York, London and Bangalore as well as renderings on paper of the chance materialisations of architectural monstrosities encountered by the flaneur at the unholy intersections of disparate materials, sensibilities and times. The mathematical and the organic cohabitate as a dialogue and are built up using recognizable imagery and a vocabulary of formal elements. The artist is preoccupied with the transient topographies of urban spaces – ever-climbing skylines, buildings under construction and the whir that entwines them. The characteristics of space are identified and the elements are then engaged in reconstructing a new structure redefined by the artist’s perception. The purpose is not to look for spatial strangeness but the tension between the understandable and the ununderstandable, between representation and abstraction, between seeing and knowing.
Niyeti completed her MFA in Printmaking from the Faculty of Fine Arts, The Maharaja Sayajirao University (MSU), Baroda. She is the recipient of scholarships at the Gasworks International Studio Residency, London, supported by the Charles Wallace India Trust (2019) and The Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation, Manhattan Graphics Centre, New York (2006); INLAKS Fine Art Award (2005). Her solo exhibitions include ‘Weaving Shards’, LATITUDE 28, New Delhi (2017); ‘Drawing Notes’, Studio X, Global Network Initiative | GSAPP | Columbia University, Mumbai (2015); ‘A Script for a Landscape’, site-specific wall drawing, Queens Museum of Art, New York (2011). Recent group exhibitions include ‘Inscapes’ curated by Premjish Achari with LATITUDE 28, Bikaner House, New Delhi (2023); Art Mumbai with LATITUDE 28, New Delhi (2023); Delhi Contemporary Art Week with LATITUDE 28, Bikaner House, New Delhi (2023-18); Art Dubai with LATITUDE 28, Dubai (2023); India Art Fair with LATITUDE 28 (2023-18); ‘Maximum Minimum’ with LATITUDE 28, Artissima (Hub India) curated by Myna Mukherjee and Davide Quadrio, Oval Lingotto, Italy (2021); ‘Traversing the Noosphere’, LATITUDE 28, New Delhi (2021); ‘The New Minimalists’, Abrons Art Center, New York (2018). Niyeti lives and works in Bangalore, India.
