6:00 PM
Ekta Aggarwal
November 16th - December 8th, 2019
Monte Vista Projects is pleased to announce 6:00 PM, a solo exhibition by Ekta Aggarwal. 6:00 PM is a series of drawings that address the element of time as a material in Aggarwal’s work. The natural pigments that she uses in her painting practice are derived from trees and minerals found in the earth which take anywhere from a few years (in the case of trees) to millions of years (in the case of minerals) to form. The handspun cotton (Khadi) and the hand woven textiles that she employs are produced by slow practices that take time. The intricate patterns of her paintings are also part of a slow process. She started working on this series in June 2018 where she made a drawing everyday at 6 PM. These drawings also serve as a journal of her time in the United States after her graduation from CalArts. She ended the series at the end of January 2019 when these drawings started to take up not only physical but also psychological time.
Ekta Aggarwal has an MFA in Art from California Institute of the Arts, an MA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London, and a BA (Honours) in Economics from Hindu College, University of Delhi. She has received several awards and scholarships, including the Diversity Grant and Provost’s Merit Scholarship and 2017 Hybrid Incubator for Visionary Entrepreneurs from California Institute of the Arts, Workshop with Hochschule Fur Bildende Kunste, among others. Ekta’s work has been shown in Los Angeles, Copenhagen, London, and Delhi. She was an artist in residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in 2018. She is currently living and working in Doha as a fellow at Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar.