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In his photomontage projects, Dalal examines autobiographical and architectural sites in India and explores his sense of legacy with each. In the series Chowpatty he considers the sweeping horseshoe bay of his native city Mumbai, appropriating a 19thcentury panorama as a baseline from which to build a splintered collage of images of churning seascapes and scraggly palm trees. In all his work, Dalal reappraises his earlier assumptions, creating a sense of critical memoir by using a variety of photo genres, multiple moments, time periods, and a range of textures within the frame of a single montaged image.
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Go West (Baldwin) 2006, 30 x 40 in., Dig.C-print
The potency of a single distilled image, or even a sequence of such images, no matter how beautiful, is something Dalal questions. Montage is a more robust means to bring together disparate – even contradictory – aspects of his experiences.
The photomontages in Go West are autobiographical, in that they are assembled from his family snapshots, favorite music, mother’s embroidery, prints of laburnum and palm trees and champa flowers from Mumbai streets, as well as photographs of monuments and sites visited on family outings, including his first trip outside India. This series is an attempt to make sense of an early awareness of the West now filtered through the dubious hindsight of an immigrant.
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These images are made in real time on a digital scanner. Dalal uses his fingers, palms, knuckles and arms to grab, place, hold, nudge, jog, sweep, and shake the many different ingredients of the photomontage. In the results, he welcomes both the grating friction among the various parts of the montage and the moments when the seams dissolve and the juxtaposed bits coagulate fluently. Slivers of memory surface briefly and disappear.
Go West (Bhabhi) 2006, 30 x 40 in., Dig.C-Print
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