Debashish Banerji Haridas Chaudhuri Professor of Indian Philosophies and Cultures Doshi Professor of Asian Art California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) San Francisco, CA www.ciis.edu
This is an art of abstract realism. by that is meant the principle of abstraction is not a medium for a representation, whether natural or technical. a natural medium might be as in the use of natural or cultural forms of representation through which a movement of consciousness would be expressed. a technical medium might be a theoretical form such as color field, which may have formed a tradition that would be in transduction with the movement of consciousness being expressed. These forms of transduction, over sites of natural, cultural and theoretical media, have an immense importance in themselves as new forms of collective individuation, carrying history as an evolving body. But that there can be an abstract realism is a pointer in the direction of an intensity equally spirit and matter, hence arche-med(ium/a).
Hufreesh's abstracts are pointers of that kind, of non-representative abstract realism. In saying this, I also don't mean abstract materialism, where the principle(s) of abstraction, say color, texture and intensity imprint themselves as movements of consciousness directly onto a physio-chemical or even biochemical substrate. This, indeed, is the nature of the art object, but what it expresses is the realism of a mental-vital-physical reality expressing a movement of consciousness through its phenomenological existence. In this way it is characteristic of an artist resident of Auroville, a city dedicated to spiritual experimentation leading to a divine manifestation on earth. Terms, such as "divine manifestation” are not entirely open yet open to plural understandings, leading to an utopian collective subjectivity and individuation. At the same time, the telos is an attractor and hence a reality in becoming, that exerts its own influence from the future. The images of artists can give spiritual and cultural materiality to such futures. the abstract realism of Hufreesh exemplifies this expressive transindividuation of Auroville.