For his first solo exhibition with Civilian Art Projects, Avi Gupta presents “lonesum,” an ongoing series of photographs he began in 2006. Framing static moments with an eye that seeks parts to a whole, Gupta explains that “the sum of these parts reflect the weight of a residual cosmic loneliness found in everyday situations.”

A blanket, tangled and wrinkled from use, drips over the side of a mattress, like icing on a cake. A spider hangs from a ceiling, just a window bay away from a printed floral curtain: A facade of flora and fauna. Gupta hints at humankind’s tension with other animals and objects that contain the presence and absence of human interaction, revealing an abstracted construction of meaning through commonplace happenstance.

Using the universal life quest -- the constant search for meaning -- as a vehicle, Gupta turns to the vulnerability present in the everyday. He constructs opportunities for symbolism within each frame, bringing our attention to anthropomorphized objects and scenes that personify the animate versus inanimate, toward fabrics that temporarily hold or retain the presence of people, to displaced or discarded items that denote value. The sum of these parts become equal to a moment caught in isolation, imbuded with meaning by the viewer, yet intangible and fleeting.

Avi Gupta resides in Washington, D.C., where he works as an exhibiting artist and as Director of Photography at US News & World Report. His images have appeared in major publications such as The Washington Post and The New York Times, and have been exhibited across the U.S., including in the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC, The Creative Alliance in Baltimore, and the Leroy Neiman Gallery at Columbia University in New York. His last body of work, “There Is Here”, was commsisoned for a solo show by the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art at East Anglia University, and is currently on tour throughout the UK. Alongside private collections, his work is held in the permanent collection of the Library of Congress in Washington. In elementary school, he was awarded many “gold stars” in art class.

October 26 - December 1, 2012

Opening Reception: Friday, October 26th, 2012, 7-9pm

For his first solo exhibition with Civilian Art Projects, Avi Gupta presents “lonesum,” an ongoing series of photographs he began in 2006. Framing static moments with an eye that seeks parts to a whole, Gupta explains that “the sum of these parts reflect the weight of a residual cosmic loneliness found in everyday situations.”