Lea Rose Kara, Eidos, 2024. Wood, foam, wool, and virgin wool dyed with chrysanthemums, 110 x 97 x 18.5 cm.
'I take a piece from the earth that I am on'
- Himani Gupta
Mandy Zhang Art is delighted to present Enrooting, a group show of the artists Bella Bradford, Himani Gupta, Serena Huang, and Lea Rose Kara. Running between 21 November 2024 and 7 January 2025, the exhibition explores the intricate relationships between materials and the cultural narratives they embody, prompting alternative understandings of the environments we inhabit.
Visitors to the exhibition will be welcomed by an array of paintings, sculptures, installations and collages. The artworks are notable in their masterful use of materials, which are sourced by the artists from their immediate surroundings. Whether through Rose Kara’s woollen sculptural forms, Gupta’s bright pigments, or Bradford and Huang’s refashioned textiles, materiality plays a central role in Enrooting. Things, both man made and naturally occurring, have been divorced from their original contexts and given a new life, simultaneously exposing and questioning our tendency to overlook that which fills the space around us. The artworks act as crystallisations of the artists’ locales, revealing how culture and geography shape each other through objects.
The artists in Enrooting thus display a shared attempt to reconnect with spaces by engaging with the objects that circulate within them. Throughout, we are reminded of the ecocritical notion that shedding light on the environment makes it stop ‘being That Thing Over There that surrounds us and sustains us,’ (Morton, 2007). Objects, as we are shown, play a major role in shaping identity and consciousness.
Enrooting emphasises that our understanding of identity and belonging is a dynamic process—one that is continually reshaped by the materials we choose to surround ourselves with and the meanings we ascribe to them. As we engage with the exhibition, we are encouraged to become active participants in this ongoing conversation, recognising the power of objects to influence our perceptions and experiences. We are encouraged to acknowledge the stories that reside within materials and their locales, and that our identities are as layered and complex as that which connects us to ourenvironments.