Disability and Healing Landscapes
OPENS JUNE 4TH, 2025
ARTIST STATEMENT:
My work on disability, trauma and the complex process of recovery is grounded in my personal experience. I was buried under rubble during an earthquake in Kutch, India in 2001. The years that followed involved a process of healing, both mental and physical. Healing, however, does not erase damage: PTSD entails an ongoing process of recovery - it is rarely ever "done" -- and my left arm has atrophied, over the years, the internal damage slowly becoming visible to the world. This was the basis for my last major body of work, “Mending Cracks.” I now move forward with a new process of image making and visual metaphor, to look outward, from the body, to the body of the earth, to reconsider "healing" (in all its forms), again. This new set of work looks at the broken and the whole, the hurt and the healing: fallen trees in the landscape of Bowen Island – or Nex̱wlélex̱wm, as it is called in the Coast Salish language of the indigenous people who once seasonally occupied this land. My work is an effort to show how these lifeless, broken forms give life to new vegetation, and thus continue to live, even if broken or partial: the fields at The Meadow in Crippen Park that transform, through the seasons, from dry and barren to lush and green, the tree stumps that give life to new trees. Through these works I explore the life that comes through patterns of decay and transformation, through loss and through healing, through and with brokenness, not towards the “whole,” but towards the integration of that which is broken with that which is new. This project thus explores the idea of disability through these landscapes of fallen trees and broken branches, amidst lush green and vibrant flora; fallen trees and broken branches act as a metaphor for disability and the lush green landscape provides a sense of hope and healing.
Thanks to Canada Council for funding this worthy project.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Raghavendra Rao K.V. is a multidisciplinary, practicing visual artist originally from Bangalore, India, and currently living and working on Bowen Island/Nex̱wlélex̱wm, BC. His practice integrates public art, multi-media work, painting and graphic design. He taught at the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, in Bangalore, India for over 15 years.
He has facilitated and coordinated numerous multi-disciplinary arts projects that were a part of international exhibitions including Ars Electronica, at Linz, Austria in 2005 and ‘Bombaysers’ at Lille, France in 2006.
He has taken part in numerous international art residencies and exhibitions in Switzerland, Scotland, Mautitius and India to name a few. His present project, “Disability and Healing Landscapes,” has received Canada Council for the Arts grant under the category Explore and Create; Concept to Realization for the year 2025. His project “Dissenting Views/ Viewing Dissent” was also awarded a Canada Council for the Arts grant in 2021-22, resulting in a solo show at the Hearth Gallery, Bowen Island in 2023.
Please join us for the following Events:
SATURDAY JUNE 7TH:
Meet the Artist - 6 to 9 pm
Artist Talk - 6 to 6:30 pm - Healing What Cannot Be Healed
Performance - 7 to 7:20 pm - Songs of Introspection : Inspired by South Asian folk & spiritual traditions
Please enjoy refreshments and indian-inspired appetizers with us!
This exhibition explores the experience of disability, and a disabled person’s view of and engagement with the natural landscape.
Article for Undercurrent:
Disability and Healing Landscapes
The central theme of my new set of work explores the experience of disability, and a disabled person’s view of and engagement with the natural landscape, utilising a visual language that employs Installation, Painting and Drawing.
This new set of work under the project “Disability and Healing Landscapes,” funded by the generous grant from the Canada Council for the Arts for the year 2025, looks at the broken and the whole, the hurt and the healing: fallen trees in the landscape of Bowen Island, where I reside, to show how they give life to new vegetation, and thus continue to live. Through these artworks I explore the life that comes through patterns of decay and transformation, through loss and through healing, through and with brokenness, not towards the “whole,” but towards the integration of that which is broken with that which is new.
Having lived on Nex̱wlélex̱wm, Bowen Island, for the last five years, I have cherished my experience of the natural landscape through the seasons, as it transforms. One sees how old, sick trees, once they fall, change the articulation of a space, its shape and scale. And after some time, new growth begins, interacting with what was lost. I find this most interesting as a disabled person: the new alternatives and beginnings that surround us, the transformations from injury and destruction into different kinds and shapes of flourishing. The project explores the idea of disability through these landscapes of fallen trees and broken branches amidst lush green and vibrant flora; fallen trees and broken branches act as a metaphor for disability and the lush green landscape provides a sense of hope and healing.
Overall, this project is a continuation of my exploration of my context, both immediate and general. This set of paintings that move out from pathos, into hope, and then into joy, to reflect the complexity of the process of healing and celebrate our embeddedness in the natural world.