Target

target, created specifically for the 4th Biennial of Caribbean Art in 2002, was a ground-breaking piece in Indrani Gall's oeuvre. Although Gall previously had experimented with mixed media works, she had never attempted anything on this scale. Also in respect of subject-matter, Target was, if not seminal, at least a deviation from the artist's habitual perspective, according to which social and political issues usually were prioritized over personal ones. In Target, however, Gall seems to speak more philosophically about the risk of jeopardizing something in the process of reaching for it. The red target-mark at the centre of the grid is thus surrounded by repeated images of butterflies, bottles, bat-like creatures and a girl, seen by a window-sill with another "window-opening" above her chest - each an image of something ephemeral, brittle, elusive or fragile, and each containing a substance or essence, which cannot easily be reached - and certainly not by as singular a means-end strategy as suggested by the bow and arrow. Gall's piece can be read as a metaphor for many different things - among them progress, self or love. (TH)