Solo Exhibition by Sohan Qadri

Sohan Qadri (1932-2011). This extraordinary exhibition offers an immersive journey into the spiritual and meditative world of Qadri’s art, where abstraction and transcendence converge. Sohan Qadri, born in India, chose the life of an ascetic, traveling extensively through the Himalayan regions of India and Tibet in his youth. His journey later took him across East Africa, North America, and Europe, eventually leading him to Copenhagen, Denmark. There, Qadri began working with natural dyes on paper, driven by his quest for higher consciousness and a focus on the body's quotidian energy. His deepened understanding of creativity as a meditative and transcendent act is vividly reflected in his artwork, characterised by repetitive and rhythmic patterns on handmade paper. Qadri developed a distinctive technique involving carved meditative incisions into thick paper, mirroring the cadence of breathing and infusing his work with tranquillity and depth. The result was a series of incandescent paper artworks with a tactile surface and a monochrome palette. “The dyes breathe through the paper as though they are alive—they work in ways that are revelations,” Qadri once said, encapsulating the essence of his creative process. This exhibition at 1X1 Art Gallery presents a selection of Qadri’s most iconic works, where vibrant colours and rhythmic patterns create an almost hypnotic effect, drawing viewers into a meditative state. The works on display are a testament to Qadri’s unique perspective on colour field painting, combining his Indian roots with global modernism. The exhibition "- all their singularities" draws inspiration from Gilles Deleuze's exploration of children's cartographic activities in What Children Say. Deleuze challenges traditional psychoanalytic interpretations, emphasising that children engage in a dynamic mapping of their environments—creating trajectories, lines, and loops that reflect their interactions with the world. This process is not just about movement through space but is also an exploration of the milieu's qualities, forces, and events. The exhibition captures this essence of mapping, tracing, and journey-making, where each work embodies a trajectory or a becoming. The artists—through their diverse practices—echo this cartographic impulse, weaving narratives that traverse memory, identity, and space. Each piece in the show becomes a node in a larger, evolving map, revealing connections and disjunctions, pathways and detours, and ultimately, singular journeys that defy simple categorisation