2015
woodcut print on paper
48 x 40 in. (121.9 x 101.6 cm)
Collection of the Akron Art Museum
Gift of Avi Gitler
2024.16
From afar, "You'll find it pleasantly beautiful. Red is a deceptive, obscuring color. It is never solitary in meaning. It can make you think of celebration and violence at the same time." From up close, however, "You see violence, you see anger. You might find it intimidating, even dangerous." Natasha Nargolkar and Vaibhav Raj Shah synthesize these two points of vie, noting that "Something in this [image] carries a memory of violence, but everything is still. It's almost as if violence when still can feel tender and comfortable to the touch." Khurusani has indeed noted that, while other works created around the same time sometimes feature volcanoes "to express the voices of women and their anger against the present misogynistic situation in our country and around the world," works like "Land-escapes" that center on pools and craters suggest what happens after these "eruptions" - the silent, peaceful protests that come after the first burst of of anger and eventually bring about change. In a review of this broader body of work, Poojah Pillai also moves toward a synthesis of potentially opposing qualities in writing "It looks like a wound has been framed and mounted on the wall. The vividness and ferocity of its reds and oranges indicate a raw and violent anger of the type that rarely finds acknowledgement in real life, no matter that it simmers beneath the 'normalcy' we value so much." When taken together, these different interpretations of "Land-escapes" suggest the animated sense of possibility that the work gains from its dense details and textures, and the tightly controlled, glowing range of its colors. Within the context of Khurusani's career and concerns, these aspects of material richness shift into conceptual depth, providing a range of metaphorical meaning for viewers to explore.