Series

Cotton Exchange

Created

2023

Medium

Acrylic on linen

Dimensions

24 in. x 32 ft.

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Cotton Exchange is a seven-panel painting that recreates a bas relief sculpture found on the exterior of Mumbai’s first Art Deco building, The Cotton Exchange, founded in 1936. Once the site of cotton stock trading in this city of historic cotton mills, the building now lies in a state of disrepair amidst the thriving centre of Mumbai’s modern jewellery market, Zaveri Bazaar. Cotton Exchange aims to preserve this important sculptural work and the chronicle of historic cotton production in India that it illustrates.

The original relief depicts the making of cotton textile from seed to export and includes workers, plants, animals, machines and industry. The seven panels that make up Cotton Exchange mimic what is seen by a contemporary bystander looking up at this building, including an empty large black billboard that partially obscures the view of the original sculpture. In Cotton Exchange, this mysterious area is represented by a black circular canvas that opens up questions and of what lies hidden behind, perhaps suggesting a more ominous story of a highly-profitable global clothing industry that thrives on obfuscation to for it’s existence.

Included with Cotton Exchange is photo documentation taken by the artist in 2022 of the exterior of The Cotton Exchange building.

You may read more about this work in a catalogue text written by Dr. Natasha Bissonauth available as a pdf here.