Sunil Gupta | Homelands

Exhibition Dates: April 10 – May 22, 2004

Closing Reception with the artist at the gallery: Saturday May 22, 2-5PM

Film Screening of “(A World Without) Pity” by Sunil Gupta

at the Cumberland 2 Cinema, 159 Cumberland Ave., at 3 PM

In association with the Inside Out Film & Video Festival

Sunil Gupta was born in New Delhi in 1953, where he lived until his family moved to Montreal in the late 1960s. His education brought him to New York, where he studied art, and then London, where he received his MA, and where he still resides. He has, however, remained a Canadian citizen, particularly in his desire to explore the many facets that comprise his identity.

Since the early 1980s, Gupta has continued to delve into projects that are self-referential by nature, but universal in their outcome. Beyond his diverse cultural influences, his work has dealt with a number of issues surrounding homosexuality, particularly the personal and social implications in both Eastern and Western societies.

When he was diagnosed as HIV-positive in 1995, he chose not to allow his medical condition to become the single governing factor in his work, however it has gradually became an important informant. In Homelands, Gupta’s large-scale colour diptychs explore the connections between the diverse landscapes that he has an affinity with: Northern India, Eastern Canada, North Eastern USA, and England. He confronts these landscapes both as an artist who is HIV-positive, and as a man whose life in the west differs greatly from that he which he would have lived had he never left India.

Perhaps the most stunning aspect of Gupta’s work is the comfortable fit between meaning and aesthetic. The political becomes the beautiful, and we enter his world as easily as entering an open door.

A retrospective monograph of Sunil Gupta’s work, titled Pictures From Here, was published by Autograph / Chris Boot in 2003. His photographs and videos have been shown extensively throughout Europe and North America.

We are pleased to announce that Sunil Gupta will be joining us for a closing reception at the gallery on Saturday May 22 from 2-5 PM. He will also be screening a video piece titled "(A World Without) Pity" in participation with the Inside Out Toronto Lesbian and Gay Film and Video Festival and Contact Toronto Photography Festival, on Sunday May 23 at the Cumberland 2 Cinema at 3 PM. He will also present a talk in association with SAVAC - The South Asian Visual Arts Collective.