Artist, community volunteers will assemble next exhibition piece at Ulrich
A new, one-of-a-kind sculpture will be taking shape this week in the Ulrich Museum of Art.
Texas-based artist Abhidnya Ghuge is known for her unique, massive installations that she assembles on-site using thousands of woodblock-printed paper plates and rolls of chicken wire.
The piece she’s putting together to fill the Ulrich Museum’s largest gallery space is one of her biggest to date. She’s planning to use 12,000 plates, but she’s bringing a few thousand more just in case.
Her installation process always involves community volunteers, who help fold and plug the plates into the openings. From 1 to 4 p.m. on Friday, July 11, anyone whose “wrists and fingers are fine” is welcome to join the community-build event at the museum located on the Wichita State campus.
The sculpture, along with the carved birch boards Ghuge used to make the prints, will be on display for the public from July 22 through Dec. 6. Ulrich Museum hours are 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, with extended hours until 8 p.m. on Thursdays. It is closed on Sundays, Mondays and university and major holidays.
For Ghuge, pronounced “goo-GAY,” the paper plates and the resulting sculptures are a metaphor for human life and communities.
“I consider myself just like a paper plate, here to be of service, of use, and then leave this life when my purpose is done. If thousands of paper plates (or lives) come together, we can have a positive impact,” Ghuge said in a previous interview about her works.
Ghuge earned a medical degree in dermatology in Bombay, India, before moving to the U.S. in 1996 with plans to do a medical residency. When a change in visa requirements thwarted those plans, she pursued what she had originally planned to study in college: art. She earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in fine art from the University of Texas at Tyler, where she also taught for several years.
Art had been a major part of her childhood. Her father, who enjoyed making art, used to make her draw and present a new work every Friday from ages 5 through 8. During her teen years, when her parents’ marriage fell apart and her home life became dysfunctional, Ghuge turned to art for an escape.
She was taking her first sculpture class as an undergraduate when she received a call from a friend back home, telling her that her 14-year-old son had died after a fall. Required to create a sculpture out of a material not usually considered a medium, Ghuge made her first piece using paper plates, assembling a vase-like piece out of disposable plates to convey her thoughts about life and death.
Over the past two decades, she’s created about 20 of her large-scale installations. She calls them site-responsive because they are unique to the space where she assembles them. For the Ulrich Museum, which she visited in September, she’s leaning in on the themes of education.
It takes several months to prepare and print the plates she uses for the sculptures.
“I can only print so many plates in the evening after dinner and on the weekends,” said Ghuge, who works full time in the health insurance industry.
She draws and carves henna-inspired designs on a large 4-foot-by-3-foot woodblock. For the Ulrich piece, she used multiple boards. The paper plates are laid on the woodblock and printed using an oil-based ink. After the ink dries, Ghuge stacks and boxes up the plates for final transport to the installation site.
After each site-specific piece is disassembled, Ghuge reuses the plates to create permanent, smaller wall pieces.
Besides the July 11 community-build event, two other related events are planned. Both events are free and open to the public.
Artist talk: 6-7 p.m. Tuesday, July 15, in the McKnight Art Center, where Ghuge will talk about her creative process and inspirations for her pieces.
Printmaking process presentation: 10-11:30 a.m. July 16. Doug Billings, a longtime printmaking instructor at Wichita State and Mark Arts, will talk about the wide variety of printmaking processes as part of the museum’s free monthly Senior Wednesday program.
Community-build event for new Ulrich sculpture
What: Volunteers are welcome to help Texas artist Abhidnya Ghuge assemble a new installation at the Ulrich Museum during a free community-build event.
When: 1-4 p.m. Friday, July 11
Where: Ulrich Museum of Art on the Wichita State University campus, near 17th Street and Fairmount
More info: 316-978-3662, ulrich.wichita.edu