Madi Acharya-Baskerville
My practice incorporates painting, sculpture and installation using found objects and materials . I am interested is what already exists in our environment and can become a resourse rather than creating something from scratch.
My paintings refer to a sense of loss, a nostalgia for lost origins but simultaneously hint at new beginnings, discovering new places some of which are within our imagination, being collaged from experiences rather than a product of stark reality. The found surface itself has a past, marked, textured, battered, worn out hence marking time whilst the irregular edges suggest a continuity beyond what can be viewed.
My more sculptural work involves found objects and materials juxtaposed with more natural forms such as large branches discovered in woodlands across the UK. I want to explore the tension between natural and synthetic materials, how they can co-exist and the resulting structures can come to resemble organic, sometimes alien yet recognizably human forms. Using beadwork and textiles, which originate from the South Asian Culture where I grew up, I continue to be fascinated by sparkling jewelry, decorative accessories and ornate textile patterns from childhood.
Forthcoming Project:
'In The Heart of the Place' This is a collaboration with artist Trevor Burgess, which explores a fascination with creating images that are imbued with lived experiences of diffrent social spaces within the world we inhabit.
Due to COVID 19, plans for this project are altered and still under discussion.
QUALIFICATIONS : MA Fine Art, Cardiff Institute, University of Wales, Cardiff
SOLO EXHIBITIONS:
2019 ‘I wish my hair was as long as yours’, Magdalen Art Space, Magdalen Road Studios
2017 Absent Beach Vinyl Deptford, London
2008 Memories from Home at Citygate, St Clements, Oxford
(sponsored by Carter Jonas and Rectory Homes)
TWO PERSON EXHIBITION:
2018 ‘Dancing with the corporeal’ with Matthew Gould no format Gallery, Deptford, London with Artist Talk facilitated by Richard Dyer, (editor in chief, Third Text)
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
2019 Weave It! , Stour Space, London, curated by Decorating Dissidence
2019 Parallel Lines: Drawing and Sculpture, The Lightbox, Woking
2019 by the way, Lewisham Art House, London
2018 ‘and the value of nothing’, Studio 1:1 Gallery, London
2018 Object, hARTslane, London
2017 Material World, An International Perspective, SJE Arts, Oxford
2017 Summer Salon, Angus Hughes Gallery, London
2017 Between the Lines, Espacio Gallery, London
2017 The Cellar, Lubomirov/Angus-Hughes, London
2016 Art on the Move/ Magdalen Road Studios, The Jam Factory, Oxford
2016 Psychedelic Breakfast, Vinyl Deptford, Deptford X Fringe, London
2016 Summer Salon, Lubomirov/ Angus-Hughes, London
2016 Material World, Ancien Musee de Peinture, Grenoble
2016 Dis locate, VW Showroom, Oxford, curated by Luis Manuel Araujo
2016 Eves & Liliths, Espacio Gallery, London
2015 Unravelling Time, The Abbey at Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire
2015 Zeitgeist Summer Exhibition, Bond House Gallery, ASC Studios, London
2015 Affordable Art Fair represented by Mint Art Gallery, Hampstead Heath, London
2014 Affordable Art Fair represented by Mint Art Gallery, Battersea, London
2014 'Alps and Spires' Museum of Oxford, Oxford
2013 ‘Sanctuary Part 2’ Brunei Gallery, SOAS, London
2013 L’Enchantement des Livres, La Maison de l’international , Grenoble, France
2012 ‘Surfaces: Works on Paper’, Sput+nik Gallery, Porto, Portugal
2011 ‘Immediate Territory’, Magdalen Road Studios, Oxford (funded by ACE)
2011 ‘Sanctuary, Part 1’ National Museum of Kenya, Nairobi
2011 Parallax Art Fair, La Galleria, Royal Opera Arcade, London
2009 ‘Frontiere’ exhibition selected by Art-in-Situ, Drome, France
2007 Umfeld<->Inwelt, Frauenmuseum, Bonn, Germany
2007 In-tent-city, ‘Refuge Tent’ at Cowely Road Carnival (ACE funded)
2006 ‘Quest: The Artist as Pilgrim’, Ovada Gallery, Oxford,
2004 ‘The Hero’, Installation with found boat and sound Oxford Water Festival
2003 ‘All our cultures’, Oriel Myrddin Gallery,Wales
CURATED PROJECTS
2018 Objection, co-curated with Hayley Harrison, Angus Hughes Gallery, London
2009 Jam: Cultural Congestions in Contemporary Asian Art, co-curator and artist South Hill Park, Bracknell (ACE funded)
COMPETITIONS AND OPEN SUBMISSIONS
2020 ‘This Year’s Model’ Studio 1:1 Gallery, London
2019 Artcan Open, Trinity Art Gallery, London
2018 Fe/Male, AIR Gallery, Manchester
2017 The Human Stain, members show, Studio 1:1 Gallery, London
2016 'Looking Up', Studio 1:! Gallery, London
2016 RA Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London
2015 Winner of Axisweb100
2015 ' This Year's Model', Studio 1.1 Gallery, London (selected by studio 1:1 with Marcus Cope and Robin Seir)
2012 Wells Art Contemporary, Wells and Mendip Museum, Wells, Somerset
2012 ‘Unforeseen’, Studio 106 Art Gallery, London
2008 Oxford Open Modern Art Oxford, Oxford
2006 ‘Re-worked’, Washington Gallery, Cardiff,
2006 ‘Flight’, Stroud House Gallery
1999 Short-listed for BT New Contemporaries
AWARDS AND COMMISSIONS
2020 ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’ participatory project commissioned by Modern Art Oxford as part of the public program for Kiki Smith exhibition, ‘I am a Wanderer’.
2017 Oxford Festival for the Arts, commissioned to create wall based work for an Indian Tent (ACE Funded)
2007-8 Grants for Arts Award for Residency and Exhibition (France and England) ‘Within Walls’ Oxfordshire Museum, Woodstock, Oxfordshire (2008) ‘Stories, Memories and Concepts’ at La Tour de Crest, France following residency (2007)
2007 In-tent-city: Commissioned as lead artist by Fusion (Oxford’s community arts agency) to work with culturally diverse groups in Oxford to create installations involving a tent for June 2007 and September 2007
2006 Mentoring Commission: to work alongside ‘Making Marks’ a partnership of Public artists for the East Oxford Health Centre sculpture commission
RESIDENCIES
2011 Residency at ‘Sanctuary’, Neryi, Kenya
2009 Gosford Hill School, Commissioned by Kids@art, educational charity, Oxford
2008 Eynsham Primary School, Commissioned by Kids@art
2007 ‘Art-in-situ’ residency in Crest, The Drome, France, working in the medieval tower exploring the theme ‘Stories, Memories, Concepts’ (ACE Funded)
PUBLICATIONS
I wish my hair was as long as yours, catalogue with essay by Stephanie Straine, Curator of Projects and Exhibitions, Modern Art Oxford, 2019
Download catalogue (PDF) from www.madiacharya-baskerville.org
by the way, Exhibition Catalogue, 2019
Phantasms,road rage,feminism, Review of This Year’s Model, The Human Stain by James Brewer http://www.allaboutshipping.co.uk/2017/01/07/phantasms-road-rage-feminism
Summer Exhibition Illustrated 2016, Exhibition Catalogue
Dis locate, Magdalen Road Studios, exhibition catalogue
Alps and Spires, Exhibition Catalogue, April 2014
'Sanctuary Part 2': Home, Away, Common Ground, Exhibition Catalogue, July 2013
'Sanctuary Part 1': Home, Away, Common Ground', Exhibition Catalogue, July 2011
Immediate Territory, Exhibition Catalogue, November 2011
Within Walls Exhibition Catalogue, March 2008
Umfeld<->Inwelt, Exhibition Catalogue October 2007
Artists at Work, feature article by Karen David, Elan, Spring 2007
‘Quest: Artist as Pilgrim’ March 2006
Review of the work of artist, Solveigh Goett at Ovada gallery, Oxford (www.a-n.co.uk)
‘Tracing the International’ Issue, Internationalism and Arts of Cross-Culture
The Cutting Edge, vol 4, 2002
