Tsohil Bhatia: This Fire That Warms You

CUE presents This Fire That Warms You, a solo exhibition by artist Tsohil Bhatia with mentorship from Puppies Puppies (Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo). Bhatia was selected for this opportunity through CUE’s open call. The show opens on Thursday, September 5 and will remain on view until October 19. It is accompanied by Untitled (Rano), a sculptural work by Bhatia presented on Governors Island as part of NADA House, on view September 3–October 27.

The exhibition at CUE imagines the gallery as a kitchen, activating and recontextualizing its furnishings, ingredients, methods, and labor. Bhatia engages in transmodal ways of making that consider the everyday and the ephemeral. Their ongoing studio and kitchen practices converge, revealing excerpts and observations of their daily life through sculpture and installation-based works.

This Fire That Warms You sets a stage for something that is yet to happen—or perhaps that has already taken place. Bhatia constructs a scenography that serves as a backdrop to study and reperform domestic and emotional labor. Repurposed kitchenware hangs from the ceiling; dried fruits and vegetables are self-actualized through decay; pressure cookers erupt with sound and steam; surfaces bear evidence of cuts, spills, and burns. Remnants of labor hint at the presence of a body and its ghost. In its absence, however, time becomes a central character—measured in odor, hissing, running water, and discoloration. Abstracted rituals unfold without instruction, enabling a form of mourning that both facilitates memory and anticipates loss.

In the work, fire becomes a metaphor and a vector. Bhatia explores its multiplicities, from anger and rage to passion, desire, comfort, care, danger, violence, and destruction. In the kitchen, fire is disciplined; its functional uses abound. This domestication, however, gives way to moments of unpredictability, to instances in which its latent qualities become visible. Through the work, Bhatia evokes movements and processes that embody the dynamic potential of this fire, calling for an embrace—but also a warning—of the paradoxes it contains.

This Fire That Warms You is Bhatia’s first solo exhibition in New York City, and comes on the heels of their participation in the Fire Island Artist Residency and a solo exhibition at Blueprint.12 in Delhi, India. The exhibition extends beyond the walls of the gallery with Untitled (Rano), a sculptural work on view at NADA House on Governors Island. Through the works presented in these projects, a queer domesticity takes hold, one that is deeply personal to the artist. Bhatia sets alight the forms, movements, and spaces we think we know, allowing for transformative action in the kitchen and beyond.

About the Work at NADA House
Bhatia’s practice often incorporates extensive work with their own body, exploring its ghost, its labor, and its evidence. They frequently revisit and reevaluate contemporary iterations of everyday rituals from their household, situating their practice at the intersection of cold conceptualism and warm romanticism. Untitled (Rano) extends this language of the domestic into the public realm. 146 pounds of kneaded dough is placed upon a charpai (daybed), reflecting the weight of the artist’s body. This act is a reverent reperformance of Rano, a family elder. As a memorial to her departed presence, the work considers the fleeting and the unresolvable. Left to ferment in the elements and to be fed on by the creatures of the island, Untitled (Rano) contemplates the artist’s decaying body, mourning the inevitable loss of time and its bodily manifestations.

Public programming: Related events and programming in CUE’s gallery space are forthcoming; follow @cueart or sign up for emails to learn more.

Credits: This Fire That Warms You by Tsohil Bhatia, mentored by Puppies Puppies (Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo). Catalogue essay by Swagato Chakravorty, mentored by Alpesh Kantilal Patel. Graphic design by Anamika Singh. Presented by CUE Art, 2024.

CUE Team: Jinny Khanduja (Executive Director), Jasmine Buckley (Gallery Associate), Keegan Sagnelli (Communications Associate).

*Images: Recent work as part of This Fire That Warms You at Blueprint.12 (Delhi, India), 2024.