For Ritesh Meshram, often the found object is the start of the narrative. Yet, it’s not the history of the object or what it stands for that is his inspiration. It is the synapse in between. In that synapse, he intervenes, and finds a new story, a new form, a new life.

In his assemblages, the found object/objects as starting points are put together, arranged, deranged, or added on to make a composite whole. This play of material, one against the other, that Meshram deploys repeatedly in his practice, is indicative of how strongly the materialness of the object matters. The narrative may be a subliminal informant to the work, but it is the materiality that is the driving force and often leads narration into abstraction. The end result is often playful, always elegant, inviting the viewer to re-examine a familiar object in this new theater, discarding pre-conceived ideas, as a particularity is soon rendered peculiar, then not so peculiar as a new form emerges in one’s mind

Meshram has participated in group shows in India since 2009. Chemould Prescott Road presented an ambitious kinetic assemblage by him at the India Art fair in 2011 with a subsequent solo in 2012 in their space in Mumbai. He was the recipient of the Gasworks residency in 2012.

Courtesy of Chemould Prescott Road and a forthcoming essay by Deepika Sorabjee