EXPO CHICAGO 2024
Booth of Patel Brown Gallery, text by Sayem Khan:
Patel Brown introduces a solo presentation of new works in the series Mosquito Net by multidisciplinary artist Rajni Perera at the 2024 edition of Expo Chicago. Through a process akin to critical fabulation, Rajni Perera preciously uncouples Sri Lanka’s vast and overlooked histories from their colonized past. Perera weaves a new narrative history that draws from stories on pre-scientific astronomy, shamanism, and tribal and national histories to help us imagine ourselves embroiled in a rich tapestry of pasts and imagined futures.
In this body of work, Perera finds herself meaningfully developing her personal relationship with the mythologies that are characteristic of spiritual practices, such as Yaku Tovil, in Sri Lanka. Defined by shamans, black magic, exorcisms, and cleansing rituals, these traditions inform the imagery in the works materially in their ornamentation, aesthetics, and thematic qualities. Playing into the spiritually resonant themes of her work, the works in this series are all depicted at sunset, a time when many Global South traditions across racial, religious, spiritual, and geographical boundaries consider asacred time for spiritual resonances across our mortal plane.