TYEB MEHTA Bearing Weight FEATURED EVENTS

Decoding Modernism is a Saturday Family Workshop series introducing families to key shifts in modern art, examining how artists questioned traditional painting and expanded the idea of what an artwork could be. Each session explores a different modernist approach through discussion and hands-on experimentation.

This third workshop focuses on spatialism and the idea of the extended canvas, inspired by artists such as Lucio Fontana, who challenged the notion of painting as a flat surface by cutting, puncturing, and opening it to space. Participants will consider the artwork not simply as an image, but as an object that interacts with light, space, and movement.

Working with paper and mixed materials, participants will experiment with cutting, layering, and extending the surface beyond its edges. By intervening directly into the material, they explore how openings, absence, and negative space can become as expressive as marks and colour.

This approach connects to Tyeb Mehta’s radical rethinking of pictorial space, particularly his use of the diagonal to fracture and reorganise the canvas. Through these explorations, participants discover how breaking the surface can introduce tension, movement, and new ways of seeing. The workshop invites families to engage with spatial experimentation while creating a mixed-media artwork that extends beyond traditional surface boundaries.

While you’re here, explore KNMA’s ongoing exhibition

TYEB MEHTA Bearing Weight (with the lightness of being).