Johannesburg

STEVENSON is pleased to present Tula, an exhibition of new painting and installation by Salim Currimjee. The exhibition is in two parts, with its second half taking place in Port Louis, Mauritius, where Currimjee lives and works.

Tula translates from Sanskrit as 'balance', referring to the emblematic way that Currimjee, after 33 years, has found a harmony between his architectural and artistic practices. This lifelong concern with seeking balance endeavours to blur differences between disciplines, and focus on queries of colour, texture, composition and history. As in his architectural practice, Currimjee's artworks configure space as they relate to people to create an embodied reaction to spatial planes and realms. 

For Tula, Currimjee continues the mode of dual presentations running concurrently in heritage sites across Port Louis and within the gallery: online during the pandemic (2020); in Amsterdam (2022); and now in Johannesburg. His interventions in Port Louis enable a fresh mapping of the city by introducing new structures and perspectives to a fluid society. Currimjee is captivated by the flux and improvisation and creolisation reflected in the history, language, food, music, art and architecture of Mauritius, a nation that has experienced multiple waves of colonisation and immigration from Europe, Africa and Asia.

In his paintings, Currimjee cites the influence of traditional Mughal and Indian painting which approached the task of representing space through multiple points. This decision to display more than one line of sight (where the ensemble of the scene is more significant than the singular view) stands in contrast to a Western approach that creates the illusion of three-dimensional space via a specific vanishing point. Through paintings disavowing an 'obvious' center, weaving around angular and curved forms, Currimjee intervenes using Plexiglass elements that protrude from the works and disrupt the illusion of a flat visual plane.

The artist seeks in his 'constructions of space to allow ideas to float and entwine, and not be linked in a sequential linear pattern.' In Journeys in Space (2022), the works included a recurring motif of a shadow; however Tula witnesses its disappearance, and a greater emphasis is placed on textures and colours rooted in nature. The palette of the island –be it colour, texture or cultural lineage– bleeds into Currimjee's work, echoing how his home is a place that holds these elements in a constant state of convergence. Tula reflects a practice that traces these perceptions, whereby the artist is encouraged to locate a synergy and balance within his work and his surroundings on the island of Mauritius.

Tula opens in Johannesburg on 29 March, 10 to 1pm. The second part of the exhibition takes place at 6 sir William Newton street, Port Louis, Mauritius, opening on 10 April, 5pm.