Speakeasy with Avantika Bawa
Monday, December 1st, 2008
Relocated in fresh digs, Saltworks Gallery opened its new Westside space last month with Perfect Distortions, a solo installation show by Atlanta art world fixture Avantika Bawa. Bawa mines the territories of architecture and abstract sculpture. The current exhibit takes on a pair of Atlanta’s Midtown icons: Ikea and Home Depot. Bawa is a professor in SCAD’s School of Fine Arts and is based in both Atlanta and New Delhi, India.
Describe the work that’s at Saltworks right now.
What we have at Saltworks is a combination of installations, drawings [and] sculptures that seem functional but push the boundary of functionality. A lot of this comes from my previous work, which was kind of interested in modular structures, minimalism, and the intersection of architecture, furniture, sculpture and dysfunction. And, being that this new gallery is very close to Ikea . . . I thought it would be interesting to bite the bullet and address Ikea as fodder. And that’s what I did. Ikea and Home Depot play a major role in this. (more…)
