SOUMYA NETRABILE

The term Field Conditions is mainly used to describe weather-related conditions for sports games. It is also used to report on the physical environment for construction sites and air traffic control. These reports indicate how the physical environment may affect playability, aviation hazards, or construction site realities. For an artist, the field conditions might be physical external conditions such as humidity or temperature, but the metaphor can be extended to the mental and physical state of the artist—how, on any given day, elusive pressures and assumptions influence the painting environment in the studio from one day to the next.

In Netrabile’s paintings, rounded and irregular shapes accumulate over time into dense clusters of intermingling line and color. She embraces the freedom and openness of abstraction to “process happenings in the world,” unconstrained by preconceived ideas. Allowing her materials to speak, they find their eventual bulbous shapes, elongated contours, and interconnected compartments. The juxtaposition of tangles of brushwork and directional masses in the foreground against banded atmospheres of colored ground, creates a compression of space beneath, relating to complex relationships and networks that form the natural world.

Netrabile’s sculptures fold tubular and ribbon-like shapes into asymmetrical mounds defined by overlap and interconnected voids. Pitted textures, segmentation, and visible hand-modeling emphasize the material qualities of the clay, while pooled glazes accentuate seams, ridges, and change in surface relief. Moving continually between broad structures and intricate details, Netrabile’s compositions expand and contract space. Together, the works in the exhibition speak through the rising and falling sense of uncovering unutterable stirrings within.

Soumya Netrabile (b. 1966, Bangalore, India) received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Rutgers University. Recent solo exhibitions include A Stone in my Pocket, Union Pacific, London, UK; Holding Current, Rachel Uffner, New York, NY; mono no aware, Andrew Rafacz, Chicago, IL; and Soft Fascination, Gana Art, Seoul, KR. Netrabile has exhibited work in exhibitions at museums and galleries including Kunsthal N, Copenhagen, DK; Project 88, Mumbai, IN; Anthony Meier, Mill Valley, CA; Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles / New York; Karma, New York, NY; Pt. 2 Gallery, Oakland, CA; Alexander Berggruen, New York, NY; and Stellarhighway, Brooklyn, NY, among others. Netrabile’s work has been acquired by public collections including Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, CA; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; and University Club of Chicago, Chicago, IL. Netrabile lives and works in Chicago, IL.