Shelly Bahl

Visual Description: Shelly Bahl’s Songs of Lament series is comprised of black candles cast in the forms of devadasis, or ritual dancing girls who resided in medieval Hindu temple complexes. Each candle stands vertically on a wall bracket. Together, the dozens of candles are arranged to form an abstract shape that might evoke an angel or insect with a wide wingspan. Each candle has been burned in varying degrees, distorting the figures with wax drippings.

Curatorial Description: A new work from Shelly Bahl’s Songs of Lament series draws upon the artist’s personal loss after a prior iteration was destroyed during a studio break-in. This reincarnation memorializes the lost artwork, originally comprised of red candles, with a color more appropriate for grieving. The black wax candles are in the imagined forms of devadasis (ritual dancing girls) who resided in medieval Hindu temple complexes are arranged in an abstract pattern. They are meant to function as a Rorschach test, suggesting that images of devotion can shift meaning across cultural contexts. Viewers are invited to reflect upon the fates of religious iconography more broadly, in which consumer culture transmutates traditional forms and especially female forms. Each candle has been burned, distorting the figures’ faces with wax drippings.

About

Shelly Bahl is an interdisciplinary artist and decolonizing art trailblazer. She has been leading and participating in BIPOC and feminist artist-run culture in Toronto and New York City for 30 years. She was born in Benares, India and is currently based in New York City. Bahl received her BFA from York University, Toronto and her MA in Studio Art from NYU. Her interdisciplinary work has appeared in many international solo and group exhibitions. Bahl has also worked with numerous arts organizations as an educator, curator and arts programmer. Recently, she has led curatorial projects for the Lahore Museum and South Asia Institute in Chicago.