RECLAIMING
SCULPTURES by Aparna Agrawal
by Cate McQuaid, Boston Globe, 1995

Aparna Agrawal works in paper, thread, wax, and burlap-domestic media for an artist whose focus is the warmth, mystery, and fragility of home- be that family or society. At the Cambridge Arts Council's Gallery 57, her paper constructions coated in wax are translucent and seem, like balloons, filled with breath, pregnant with air. Empty beds, constructed from jute twine, burlap, and wire, appear in many pieces; empty shirts, waving like ghosts, are also a recurring image. Whether this emptiness is fecund or mournful (or both) is hard to say, but it's always contained in a thoughtful, sometimes beautiful, package.