Pooja Pittie - Only in Dark the Light

Pooja Pittie’s art practice has always and inextricably been interwoven with her disability and the inevitable decline of her physical powers. Her journey has evolved once again in the works for her next exhibition, Only in Dark the Light. This will be our third solo exhibition by Pittie since 2017.

During Covid she began combining knitted fragments with small drawings, a process she could comfortably work on seated in her studio after a morning of painting had sapped her energy for the day. Her manipulation of thread became more central to her work and over the past three years has begun to inform and interact with her painting and newer fiber pieces in an impactful way.

Titles are also important to the artist, usually reflective of some deep, inner exchange she might be having with herself. In conversation Pittie speaks of the feeling of softness, the enoughness of being, an inward focus and connection of body and mind. She asks the viewer to slow down and just be in the present.

There is also importance in connection. The new paintings represent threads that connect — slubby, uneven rows of stitched and broken lines, distorted, unraveled but ultimately connected and COMPLETE.

As with all artists, it is important that her intentions and meaning, whether brushed onto canvas or knitted into curious objects, can land squarely in the viewer’s mind and heart. This is, of course, the anxiety inherent in all art making. Like a child leaving home, once that painting exits the studio her control (but not responsibility) ends, and the world will make of it what they will.