South Asia Institute invites you to attend our opening reception, followed by a curator led tour, on Saturday, March 7 from 3:00pm to 5:00pm.
Truth to Form: Selected Drawings from the Hundal Collection
Drawing is a medium of intimacy and honesty. It is often one’s first, risk-free foray into artistic media. It is one of moments captured, contemplated, and transformed anew before our very eyes. Drawings are fragile; works on paper are prone to tearing, discoloration, and coffee stains among other less-than-ideal fates. Those who are drawn to drawing embrace this sensitivity: tacking it to the wall, fixing it with magnets, or safeguarding it in shoeboxes.
Truth to Form: Selected Drawings from the Hundal Collection explores the connection between intimacy and artistic experience. We encourage viewers to consider how the techniques used to make drawings not only reflect the motivations of the artist, but also broader ideas about life, love, conflict, and memory.
Works in this exhibition were organized according to the disposition of their formal qualities. What is the character of a gesture drawing? Is it the precision of the graphite wrinkles enlivening the portrait face that invokes memories of one’s grandparents? Or is it the rashness of the hastily manifested scrawl of a lover that moves you towards fond memories, alluding to something far greater and far beyond the walls of the gallery?
Artists in this exhibition cite their lived experiences in their work, embedding themes of fate, diaspora, political turmoil, travel, age, and upbringing. We hope visitors will feel the resonances of these ideas in their own lives as well as those who came before and after them.
About the Curator
Sydney Barofsky (they/them) is a PhD student in art history at UIC. They obtained their master's degree in art history with a museum studies concentration from the University of Denver before relocating to Chicago in 2023. In addition to their four years of experience curating and working on exhibitions in Miami and Denver, Sydney enjoys helping non-profit organizations with a variety of projects.