Patch things up
Mannat Gandotra. 2024, Acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 180 x 180 cm
b. 2001, India
Mannat Gandotra (2001, India) is a London-based contemporary painter whose vibrant, emotionally-charged abstractions explore the intersections of music, memory, and movement. She graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art (BFA) in 2023 and subsequently completed her MFA at the Royal College of Art, London in 2024.
In Patch things up, Gandotra serves up a choreography of sweeping arcs, tangled filaments, and fluid zigzags. The composition feels intuitive and gestural, yet within it are moments of intricate detailing and deliberate mark-making. The eye is drawn along diagonal paths and pulled through whirlpools of line and contour that shift between chaos and cohesion.
Gandotra draws inspiration from childhood memories of kite flying, shaped by her own experiences in India as well as depictions found in Japanese anime. These inform the composition, whereforms resemble ‘gliding ships or swooshing, sinking kites’.1 The energetic gestures across the canvas also evoke the swishing sounds of kites slicing through the sky.2 The interplay of contrasts and colliding elements - warm and cool hues, soft and hard edges, smooth gradients and abrupt disruptions - translates to a visual rhythm that captures fleeting motions and the ephemeral nature of memory.
Compositional Breakdown
Gandotra serves up a choreography of sweeping arcs, tangled filaments, and fluid zigzags. The energetic gestures across the canvas also evoke the swishing sounds of kites slicing through the sky. The eye is drawn along diagonal paths and pulled through whirlpools of line and contour that shift between chaos and cohesion.
The interplay of contrasts and colliding elements - warm and cool hues, soft and hard edges, smooth gradients and abrupt disruptions - translates to a visual rhythm that captures fleeting motions and the ephemeral nature of memory.
