The Patchwork House of Night

A recent alum and a dear friend to many, Ujwal Mantha will be presenting his latest work, The Patchwork House of Night across different spaces at UTSC.

Having won the Shelley Peterson Award in 2021, illustrated the Visual Dictionary of Sociology at UTSC Library, the UTSC Digital History Project and undertaken an illustration based Jackman Scholar Research Ujwal has created a stellar record of his illustration practice. The Patchwork House of Night is the latest fruit of his craft, the work was made entirely over the month of October 2022, as a part of Inktober, with one canvas being made every day. You are invited to read the artistic statement and read the poetic companion book that you can read through this link or the QR code below.

We are very excited to welcome back Ujwal to UTSC!

What if all the years of your life were condensed into a physical place you could travel through? What if all those emotions, feelings and adventures were turned into a building that you could scale? The Patchwork House of Night is my attempt to answer the question with the 23 years of my own life. Each canvas is accompanied by a journal entry that offers a snippet into my mind as I travel through what I’ve imagined as the summation of my entire life. The Patchwork House of Night is fundamentally about transformation; how everything changes and how each situation calls on different parts of oneself to address it. This project exists in the space between two simple statements: “I’m older than I’ve ever been” and “I’m younger than I’ll ever be”. The Patchwork House of Night is a celebration of change and a tribute to how far I’ve come. And how much I’ve changed.

Each individual piece is steeped in its own lore and context, inviting the audience to go deeper. Viewers are welcome to scan the barcode to the side to view the journal entries that accompanied each canvas.

At UTSC, The Patchwork House of Night will be on view from February to March at the Arts and Administration building and will move on to the UTSC Library from March to April before it leaves for further installations abroad.