Neha Vedpathak
‘Part painting, part construction, my works have a sensory, tactile quality, and cast intricate shadows on the wall as they float upon it. There is a spiritual aspect to my slow, repetitive, and disciplined process, similar to meditative chanting, tuned to a slower pace.’
Neha Vedpathak (b. 1982, Pune, India) is a Detroit-based artist who creates sculptural installations and wall reliefs made from paper. Through her studio practice Vedpathak aims to broaden the dialogue and understanding of issues related to identity, spirituality and gender politics. Leading with the material and the inventive processes, she is a chronicler who weaves together inspiration and ideas from politics, feminism, and eastern philosophies. Using a self-invented technique, she calls ‘plucking’, Vedpathak spends hundreds of hours separating the fibers of handmade Japanese paper with a small pin. Vedpathak’s work has gained significant institutional recognition with a recent solo exhibition, ‘Time (Constant, Suspended, Collapsed)’ at Flint Institute of Arts, Michigan and an upcoming show ‘Subtleism: Neha Vedpathak with Agnes Martin’ at Cranbrook Art Museum, Michigan. Her work, ‘Still I Rise’ forms part of the permanent collection of Detroit Institute of Fine Arts and currently hangs in their new gallery of Indian and Southeast Asian art.
Upcoming and recent solo exhibitions include; ‘Subtleism – Neha Vedpathak with Agnes Martin’, Cranbrook Art Museum, Michigan (2024), ‘Neha Vedpathak - Ideally Imprecise’, Encounter, Lisbon (2024), ‘Neha Vedpathak: Creative Force,’ David Klein, Detroit (2023), ‘Neha Vedpathak: I Dwell in Possibility,’ Sundaram Tagore, Singapore (2022),‘ Neha Vedpathak - Time (Constant, Suspended, Collapsed’, Flint Art Museum, Michigan (2021), ‘Surface Rhythms’, Sundaram Tagore Gallery, New York (2020), ‘Into the Woods’, Simone De Sousa Gallery, Detroit (2020), ‘Many Moons, Same Sky’, Simone De Sousa Gallery, Detroit (2019), ‘Of the Land’, N'Namdi Center for Contemporary, Detroit (2018), ‘Bhabha’, The Poetry Foundation, Chicago (2016), ‘The Space Between’, N’Namdi Contemporary, Miami (2013), ‘Neha Vedpathak’, One Prudential Plaza, Chicago (2012). Recent group exhibitions include; ‘Sense of Materiality’, Sundaram Tagore, London (2023), ‘Artist Rooms’, Encounter, Lisbon (2023), ‘Invisible Threads’ Baker Art Museum, Florida (2022), ‘Fermata’ Encounter, London (2022), ‘Emerge’ National Indo American Museum, Lombard (2021), ‘What Remains’, Encounter, London, (2021), ‘Alterations, Activation, Abstraction’, Sundaram Tagore Gallery, New York (2019), ‘Edition 18’, Simone De Sousa Gallery, Detroit (2018), ‘Art on Paper’, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro (2017), ‘Transformation’ (performance), Arizona State University Museum, Arizona (2016).
Vedpathak’s work can be found in important public and private collections internationally including; Detroit Institute of Art, US Embassy Hyderabad, Progressive Art Collection, Camac Art Centre, Czech Academy of Sciences, Bharat Bhavan Arts Center, Madhya Pradesh State Art Museum, Anderson Ranch Arts Centre.
Selected Work
