The Burning Hours: Floortalk with Balamohan SHINGADEThe Burning Hours:

Curator, writer and musician Balamohan Shingade responds to Kushana Bush: The Burning Hours with a free exhibition tour. Having previously interviewed Kushana Bush for Bulletin Magazine, Balamohan brings to the exhibition knowledge of the artist’s practice and an interest in the mysterious, arguably spiritual events her paintings represent.

The Burning Hours focuses on works made between 2014-2016, showing audiences what happens when Bush pushes her compositional limits and uses the entire surface of the paper. This recent body of work is rich with detail – each surface, of gouache and gold, is filled with references to illuminated manuscripts, Persian miniatures, European art history and modern life. These disparate sources bind Bush’s works to both the past and the present; the historical and the contemporary. Human interactions, humour, ambiguity, dramatic tension and intimate scale are her tools to draw viewers into a private conversation and, in some cases, a spiritual space.

Balamohan Shingade is currently the Assistant Director of ST PAUL St Gallery, AUT University. He is also a Masters graduate of Elam School of Fine Arts, The University of Auckland, where he was employed as Professional Teaching Fellow, 2012–15. During the redevelopment of Uxbridge Arts and Culture, he was the inaugural Manager/Curator of Malcolm Smith Gallery, a public gallery for the eastern suburbs of Auckland, 2015–16. He also holds a Diploma in Indian Classical Music and regularly coordinates concerts in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Image: Shamsa 2016 (detail). Courtesy of Dunedin Public Art Gallery.

18 February, 2-2pm