May 17, 2023 - May 21, 2023
COOPER COLE is pleased to present a solo exhibition of Canadian-born, Houston-based artist Jagdeep Raina in Frieze New York 2023.
Working in textile, drawing, writing, ceramics, 35mm film and video animation, Jagdeep Raina utilizes the archive in order to explore historical memory. His multi-media practice seeks to identify the residue left behind by the human touch, and its restorative potential.
The following text by Pedram Sazesh accompanies this presentation.
What time is this light-
Often we talk on the phone about where we’re living and how we feel about it, and time to time we manage to be in the same place to catch up in person.
–
I went on a walk yesterday to search for colours to cloak myself in. I walked by madder, woad, and white chalk lines on the sidewalks, and noticed this itchy place was already wearing me.
Another night I drove upstate to see a friend, stopping the car on a shoulder to play my uncle’s Nei. The car’s headlights rested on either side of me like wings. Leaving the car still running and feeling a slight breeze, I parked myself on this shore. While I blew into this instrument, a familiar sound to and of the reed bed played. The nearby swamp flickered with the sound of my uncle’s breath.
As the headlights slowly dimmed, a sudden flash exposed the landscape. I found this silver swamp to be a lake and saw blurry figures in the distance diving into it as if their silhouettes were were being woven into the light.
Soft glimmers of trees around, lit by a passing comet. Their shadows like memories turned the landscape askew.
I remember arriving home to find you/I in a postcard delivered. Written on it was a kind note about your trip, at a time when my visa was about to expire and yours was awaiting approval. But also on this postcard were scuffs made from the machines of the postal service, blurring parts of the picture on the front. I felt that they were the colours I was looking to wear.
A yesterday of 6 years, a comet passed, the same one that passed today.
Pedram Sazesh is an artist living between Amsterdam and Toronto. He met Jagdeep Raina in the summer of 2017 by Wesserunsett Lake.
Jagdeep Raina (b. 1991, Guelph, Ontario, Canada) is currently a Fellow at the Core Program, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and was previously a Paul Mellon Fellow at Yale University, a recipient of the 2020 Sobey Art Award, and a resident at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He received his BFA from Western University in 2013, his MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2016. He has exhibited internationally at the Galerie Anne Barrault, Paris (2023); Todd Madigan Art Gallery at California State University, Bakersfield (2023); Libby Leshgold Gallery, Emily Carr University, Vancouver (2023); Blaffer Art Museum, Houston (2021); Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai (2021); Museum of Contemporary Art; Textile Museum, Toronto (2021); Soft Opening, London (2020); (Midway Contemporary, Minneapolis (2019); Art Gallery of Guelph, Guelph (2019); Cooper Cole, Toronto (2022,2019); Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton (2018); Rubin Museum of Art, New York (2018); RISD Museum of Art, Providence (2017); Humber Galleries, Toronto (2017); Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Provincetown (2017); Camden Arts Centre, London (2016); and Modern Fuel Artist Run Centre, Kingston (2016), amongst others. His works can be found in the permanent collections of Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Yale Center for British Art, Carleton University Art Gallery, Art Gallery of Guelph. Raina lives and works in Houston, Texas, USA.
Jagdeep Raina
Floral Coat
Floral Coat, 2022
Mixed media on paper
J.R0279
Jagdeep Raina
Quiet Kinships
Quiet Kinships, 2022
Mixed media on paper
J.R0278
Jagdeep Raina
The Garment of Shapes and Angles
The Garment of Shapes and Angles, 2022
Mixed media on paper
J.R0233
Jagdeep Raina
Silk Diamonds
Silk Diamonds, 2022
Mixed media on paper
J.R0230
Jagdeep Raina
We deserve to live
We deserve to live, 2022
Embroidered tapestry
J.R0285
Jagdeep Raina
Mrs Malhotra
Mrs Malhotra, 2022
Embroidered tapestry
J.R0261
Jagdeep Raina
Two Rivers
Two Rivers, 2022
Embroidered tapestry
J.R0284
Jagdeep Raina
The lost meadow
The lost meadow, 2023
Embroidered tapestry
J.R0305
Jagdeep Raina
Window by the sea
Window by the sea, 2023
Embroidered tapestry
J.R0304
Jagdeep Raina
She travels softly through the seven gates as her garden croons for her
She travels softly through the seven gates as her garden croons for her, 2022
Silk and cotton embroidered tapestry
J.R0271
