CityLife

Exhibitions: Tanvi Kant and Taslim Martin

Tanvi Kant's Cut, Stitch, Adorn

Touchstones Rochdale - until October 3, 2010

Contemporary art, and a gallery’s nerve to take a punt on the talents of a newcomer, have been the lifeblood of many suburban galleries, keeping their collections vital and exclusive.

Staring at the vast Victorian and Renaissance collections in some of our city museums, it’s easy to forgot that many of those paintings were once acquired as new work and that even masters have required the continual support of the art establishment to maintain their reputation.

A gallery exhibition is, of course, the holy grail for most aspiring or working artists, but to do that with the financial support of the Arts Council England via The Shape of Things (TSOT) – a national programme that provides bursaries to craft makers – is a rare privilege indeed.

And yet, currently two beneficiaries of the TSOT scheme are showing their work at Touchstones Rochdale. Tanvi Kant works with textiles and is inspired by her Gujarati heritage, while Taslim Martin is a sculptor who examines archetypes and hierarchy through his conventional and unconventional clay and iron works.

Tanvi, who takes up a place at the Royal College of Art in the autumn, specialises in jewellery created by hand from reclaimed textiles in Cut, Stitch, Adorn. The pieces reference her own cultural background by mimicking common styles in Indian jewellery and by re-using offcuts from saris and other garments made by her friends and family.

Her work, says the gallery, ‘refers to recycling and sustainability but also gives reference to more personal and collective histories, subverting traditional notions of material value and beauty’ in India, where gold is often used as a declaration of status.

Taslim Martin’s Disparate Nature stands in somewhat stark contrast to Tanvi’s work. Taslim has the same preoccupation with relating materials to a cultural identity, and he uses an array of different raw materials to achieve this: primarily clay, metal, wood and plaster.

Taslim is already a postgraduate of the Royal College of Art and a piece of his work is in the permanent collection of the British Museum. For this show, he references his African and Caribbean descent in his large casts, wall paintings and sculptural pieces, which fill the entire gallery.

He is also creating a unique helix-shaped sculpture in plaster that visitors are invited to contribute to. Using a sectional technique called sledging, Taslim will incorporate designs, symbols and patterns left by visitors into the finished piece.

Speaking about the exhibitions, TSOT’s director David Kay said: “By enabling artists to explore the context of identity through their work and the processes of its making, TSOT seeks to stimulate debate about the contribution artists make to a society that is culturally diverse and aims to encourage a practice, audience and market for contemporary crafts representative of the society we live in today.”

Now open in Gallery Three (Tanvi Kant) and Gallery Four (Taslim Martin) at Touchstones Rochdale, The Esplanade, Rochdale, until October 3, 2010. Free.