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# A Show of Luminous Paintings, Overshadowed by Crowded Curation
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/tara-sabharwal-wilmer-jennings-gallery/
- Published: 2018-03-28T22:44:46.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:25:19.000Z
- Description: Tara Sabharwal can make objects float in the neither-here-nor-there ether.
- Author: Seph Rodney
- Tags: Art, Review, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-18 14:37 (2018)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2018/03/2-2014-sparkle.jpg)

Tara Sabharwal, “Sparkle” (2014), etching ink and watercolor, 30 x 44 inches (all photos by Yao Zu Lu and courtesy the artist unless otherwise noted)

It doesn’t take me long to be absorbed by several of the pieces in [Tara Sabharwal](https://www.tarasabharwal.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com)’s show at [Wilmer Jennings gallery at Kenkeleba House](https://www.facebook.com/kenkeleba.house). The artist, who was born in New Delhi and trained in Baroda, India and London, has a facility with a painterly abstraction that leans toward the decorative but doesn’t ever fall all the way in. The works I gravitate toward began their lives as prints, made with oil-based etching inks, and then (after some rumination) Sabharwal subjected them to transparent washes of watercolor and opaque pastels. Her hybridmonoprint paintings are delicate and layered; she can make objects float in the neither-here-nor-there ether, or form effulgent cascades that might be microscopic views of plant cells, a golden beach at low tide, or the god-like torrent that [impregnated Danaë](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dana%C3%AB?ref=hyperallergic.com) **—** this is how “Sparkle” (2014) reads to me.

Sabharwal’s keen eye for color and nuances in hue, such as in “Steam” (2017), are demonstrated throughout the exhibition *Float*. And for someone who manipulates shade and tone as deftly as she does, it’s impressive that her sense of compositional structure is just as strong — which can be seen in the black and white print “Anniversary” (2016), which depicts what may be dandelion wisps wafting to the foreground to become a garden of human eyes settling onto a bone-white ground below. Loveliness lives in her hand.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2018/03/15-2017-steam.jpg)

Tara Sabharwal, “Steam” (2017), etching ink, watercolor, and pastel, 22 x 30 inches

However, the show contains 61 pieces, 18 monoprint/paintings, 10 watercolors, 13 drawings, and 20 prints, which is far more work than I can jam into my perception or memory. It is enough to fill the front and back galleries, and another back room on the other side of a doorway. The show feels like the curation aimed to fill the space rather than create a cogent statement of Sarbhawal’s work and practice, or a potent experience for the visitor.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2018/03/1-2016-aniversary.jpg)

Tara Sabharwal, “Anniversary” (2016), etching ink and watercolor, 30 x 44 inches

Experiencing this made me think of other spaces where I’ve encountered a similar dynamic. There are a number of large galleries in the city that frequently put on overwhelming, exhausting shows (both [Steven Kasher gallery](http://www.stevenkasher.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com) and [DC Moore](http://www.dcmooregallery.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com) come to mind). They, like Wilmer Jennings, are blessed with capacious spaces, but they would be better served by exercising a more cutthroat editorial oversight on the shows they mount. *Float* ends up making me feel that the exhibition is a kind endurance test I have to pass, rather than an opportunity to explore. One can certainly have too much of a good thing, and then it’s less good.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2018/03/img-4880.jpg)

Installation view of Float at Wilmer Jennings gallery (photo by Shervone Neckles)

[Tara Sabharwal: Float](https://www.facebook.com/kenkeleba.house) *continues at Wilmer Jennings gallery at Kenkeleba House (219 East 2nd Street, East Village, Manhattan) through March 31.*