Bhajan Hunjan was the 2020 Artist in Residence at Projecto Maria Lucia Cattani, Brazil, where artists and curators are invited to celebrate the late Maria Lucia Cattani, respected Brazilian artist, through new work of their own and selections from her archive. Both artists have produced works on paper and small-scale books; both have connected with textiles and with the repetitive and patient tasks of their women ancestors.

Bhajan’s approach to the challenge offers an intimacy of interpretation, without imitation. She has devised a meaningful visual language which remains culturally and materially distinct whilst acknowledging and celebrating the work of another. It focuses on Maria Lucia’s ‘script works’, distinctive, confident prints and drawings, intentionally illegible, overprinted in massed multiples, using colour and rotation in strict and not-so-strict systems. In response, Bhajan developed a language of soft mark-making, less systematic and rotational, but reflecting a spiritual connection with the work of her friend and memories of her remarkable energy and generosity. Inspired by Sikh Gurbani scriptures from the Punjab, and while listening to the sacred music often sung to specific ragas, Bhajan printed long, fluid blocks of meditative, cursive script, repeated in a rhythmic, punctuated undulation.

Sara Roberts
2019 Curator in Residence, Projeto Maria Lucia Cattani, Brazil
s.h.l.roberts@soton.ac.uk