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Malini Gupta
~ Oregon
Ochre (art + design) |
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| Malini Gupta: "I love experimenting with new materials, ideas and processes, always striving to find new ways of approaching a problem, finding new solutions. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t, but I am satisfied for having tried. I accept my failures as a part of the process, learn from them and move on. But when I am done, I would have created something that’s original and fresh. Design to me is like a journey, a process, and an evolution of form and ideas." |
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You are invited
By Malini Gupta
Portland, Oregon: Ochre (art + design), 2025. Edition of 25.
8.25" x 8.25" x 1.5", Part Letterpress printed and part digitally printed on Mohawk Via Felt. Coptic stitch handbound book in a custom pink acrylic box Signed and numbered by the artist.
Malini Gupta: "Through 'You Are Invited', I explore the deeply entrenched dowry system in India, exposing its dehumanizing impact on women and how it shapes their societal worth. The book weaves storytelling through poetry, presents statistics on dowry-related violence and deaths, and brings real-life cases to light via QR codes. These dynamic QR codes update annually, ensuring the book evolves with the latest reports and remains a living document of this ongoing issue.
"Intertwined with my own personal experiences, the book also incorporates symbolic elements of Indian weddings-sarees bound within its pages, Hindu prayer mantras, henna patterns, flower petals resting at the bottom of the box, and a final saree infused with itar (Indian perfume). This multi-sensory approach immerses the reader in the beauty and rituals of an Indian wedding while pulling back the curtain to reveal the harsh realities hidden beneath the surface."
"You Are Invited" it is second in the series of books on patriarchy in India, following "The Fortune Teller."
$850 |
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Out of the Blue
By Malini Gupta
Portland, Oregon: Ochre Design, 2007. Edition of 5.
5.75 x 9"; tri-fold. Slipped in 13.5 x 11" black paper folio. Held in place with slit tabs. Title in black on folio. Title, background, and images letterpress printed. Text digitally printed. Typeface for text Filosofia. Typeface for title Caslon.
Malini Gupta: "This book explores the world of unsolicited spam emails that often bombard our inbox. Their quirky grammar and delightfully absurd stories make these emails a thrill to read. Out of the Blue plays on the fact the emails often follow a template. The reader gets to mix-and-match the stories and generate their own spam by switching out the paragraphs!"
How to amuse or abuse your several million closest internet friends.
$250 (Two copies remaining) |
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Unfolding Patterns of Atrocities
By Malini Gupta
Portland, Oregon: Ochre (art + design), 2007. Edition of 10.
15.5 x 5"; 11 unbound leaves. Letterpress printed with handset type and illustrations printed from polymer plates. Illustrations blind embossed. Laid in red paper wraparound. In gray cloth box with ribbon and base lift. Artist statement tipped in bottom of box. Signed and numbered by the artist on the colophon.
Malini Gupta: "Unfolding explores the ongoing genocide in Darfur. The blind embossed illustrations were drawn from photographs of a Die-in performance, a form of protest where the participants simulate being dead, that I staged in conjunction with this piece. The line drawings at the bottom of each page connect to form the map of Sudan. The cut-up poem was composed from Nicholas Kristof’s coverage of the genocide in The New York Times. Meanwhile, the genocide goes on."
$550 |
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Ochre Design Out of Print Title:
• The Story of O |
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The Fortune Teller
By Malini Gupta
Portland, Oregon: Ochre (art + design), 2015.
Second printing of 25.
5.6 x 4 x 5.6" box containing folded-paper fortune teller structure and booklet. Four-sided down drop box with removable lid, cloth-covered with paper title inset on lid. 5 x 5" single sheet artist statement laid in with bibliography sheet adhered to interior base. Fortune teller folded-paper piece 4.5" diameter. Pamphlet: 5 x 5", 18 pages including cover with Japanese stab binding. Digital printing. Paper: Sandstone 28 lb. paper ironed with wax. Signed and numbered.
Malini Gupta: "Through this work I seek to investigate the deeply entrenched gender biases that plague the Indian society. It is comprised of two parts: part one is the game of Fortune Teller; part two is my personal childhood story.
"The Fortune Teller – an unassuming childhood game that predicts your future based on choices you make. As viewers interact with this seemingly benign and innocuous game they are confronted by the cold, hard statistics of gender inequality in India. For the second part of the piece, I narrate my first hand experiences of growing up in India. As the reader takes this journey with me from my childhood to teenage years, the deeply entrenched biases come to life. I wanted to give the reader the statistics of gender bias, but also my personal story so the mundane numbers would become real.
"Growing up in India, the image of my pious mother reading religious Hindu scriptures every day never left me. References to it abound in this piece: the imagery used, the colors, and the layout of the fortuneteller and the smell of incense imbued in the paper. The book itself is bound on top to allude to a sacred Hindu scripture. It is bound using a thread, which, in the Indian culture is traditionally used for religious ceremonies. Because the book is sacred to me. I’ve allowed myself to be deeply vulnerable for this work to resolve my darkest childhood memories.
"The fortune teller is designed in beautiful patterns to entice the viewer to interact with it but also to camouflage the darkness it holds – the darkness of a child being sexually abused and a family choosing to ignore it."
(Out of Print) |
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Page last update: 03.26.2025
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