Boisali Biswas’s recent show, Reconnecting Strands: The Wefts of Time, at Gallerie 88 stitched together thread, cloth and time. Biswas, a Calcutta-born fibre artist, builds her works with great patience: on a loom, strand by strand, then layered with dye, paint, printing and stitching. That patience is visible. So is her willingness to let things stay imperfect. Frayed edges, loose ends and see-through passages are not accidents; they are intentional. Several pieces hang from thin, rod-like fabric banners; some are topped with small scraps that resemble clothes drying on a line. The image is instantly familiar, especially to Calcuttans: domestic, ordinary, yet poetic. These textiles behave like memory: stitched together, partly missing, and always shifting shape.
Up close, the surfaces reveal a patchwork of textures and techniques. Woven grids fade into painterly washes. Blocks of colour sit beside patterns that feel borrowed from lived spaces: windows, railings, stairs, the suggestion of a courtyard. In one blue work, birds and a cat appear as silhouettes on a pale, gauzy field, while dark, branch-like lines cut across the centre. The shadows cast on the wall become part of the composition, turning the gallery light into an extra layer of drawing.
Biswas’s colour palette swings between climates. There are works soaked in turmeric yellows, rust and ember-orange, and others in wintery blues and greys. The shift feels emotional rather than just decorative, like a body remembering one kind of heat while standing in another kind of cold. A small installation of long, narrow, woven strips topped with blocky forms stands in a corner like a modest skyline or a row of markers. It pushes her practice beyond wall-hanging into something more sculptural, almost architectural. The exhibition does not lean on spectacle. Its strength is the belief that everyday processes that hold a life together make it beautiful.
Biswas’s use of reused materials and loom waste is not merely a trending slogan but a reminder of the green traditions that have quietly existed before being eclipsed by consumerism.