joseph scissorhands: Sinta Tantra: Shrines of Gaiety

Sunday, 10 December 2023

Sinta Tantra: Shrines of Gaiety

Sinta Tantra - Faux Primitive, 2023

'I love the magnetic appeal of gold, its energy-given properties throughout the ages,' - Sinta Tantra.

Having visited the Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery earlier this year to see the exhibition of Rithika Merchant's latest paintings (here), I returned to the area once again to experience their new gallery space in Bermondsey and also to discover the work of British-Balinese painter Sintra Tantra in the gallerys' inaugural exhibition. These paintings with their restricted palette of Prussian blue, grey and gold, (lots and lots of gold leaf) were lively, full of movement and joy as the abstract geometric and amorphous shapes appear to caper across the canvas. Despite the playfulness, the paintings seem symbolic, and have a sense of spirituality about them as if removed from a temple or place of worship. The artist describes these works as a response to time and space, and their inspiration was found in the artists' reading of Paul Scheerbart's short novel, The Light Club of Batavia (1912), which revolves around the construction of a spa inside a mine shaft that bathes its users not in water but in light. The copious use of gold leaf certainly reflects the light beautifully, its lustre adding a new dimension to the paintings. This was the initial attraction to me of these works as I continually use lots of gold leaf in my own collaged works, and similarly like Tantra, enjoy the associations of the precious metal with wealth, power and the sense of the spiritual. The abstract amorphous shapes inhabiting these picture planes were so reminiscent of Matisse's late large paper cut outs, or indeed his celebrated religious abstract artworks for the Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence, in the south of France. Tantra's paintings also brought to mind the works of Jean (Hans) Arp, and also aspects of the later work of his wife Sophie Tauber-Arp. The combination and use of large amounts of gold leaf and blue also recalled the work of Yves Klein. In one corner of the gallery there is an installation of a blown up 1930s black and white postcard of Balinese palm trees with large replica rock forms and a shelf filling the room with the heady scent of burning incense like a shrine giving the place a sense of the sacred. This installation represents another reference to the theme of time, space, reality and illusion.