Featuring - A Ramachandran Retrospective, Theatre of Life show and more..

NEWS

A Search - Lalit Kala Chennai

( Works on display at the show)

The Lalit Kala Akademi, Chennai presents a group show of a group of artists titled, ‘A Search’. The show brings to the fore the exquisite works of the winners and awardees of the Lalit Kala Akademi Grant 2012-13.

The show displays works of the following artists, Srinivasa Reddy N, Shinoj Choran, G Gurunathan, Veeresh M Rudraswami, Avinash Manoharrao Motghare, Vijay Pichumani, S Potrarasan, N V R Sunil Varma. The works on display range from paintings, drawings and sculptural works to prints. 

The show previews on the 12th August 2013 at 6:30 pm and will be inaugurated by senior painter, P Gopinath in the presence of guests of honour, senior artists P D Nandhan and M Jayakumar.

The show is on view till the 18th of August 2013.


Theatre of Life

( A work on display at the show)

Forum Art Gallery, Chennai, presents a solo show of eminent senior artist Vasudev S G, titled, ‘Theatre of Life’. The artists is known to work in a multitude of mediums like drawing, painting, reliefs in copper and tapestries in silk. 

The artist’s work is influenced by music, literature and theatre where he has derived great inspiration from for his works. He has worked on various themes for his artistic expression, and the ‘Tree of Life’ seems to dominate and recur in his depictions.

Theatre of Life is a series where most of his symbolism bear fruit from his interactions with subjects and life in general. 
The show displays works rendered in oils on canvas with a figurative style leaning towards abstraction.

The show is on view till the 14th of August 2013.

Time Will Tell

( A work by Ghazala Praveen)

Art and Aesthetic art gallery, New Delhi presents an exhibition titled, ‘ Time Will Tell’ where new and upcoming artists will showcase their work. At the show many artists, national as well as internationally will have their works on display This exhibition will feature the works of Alec Cumming, a British painter, Vibhuti Sharma , Anjum Khan, Charanjeet Singh, Ghazala Praveen, Hans Shinde, Nilotpal Sinha, Rakesh Ray Choudhury, Vipin Yadav and Mantu Das. 

Most of the artists taking part in the exhibition are from Faculty of Fine Arts, MS  University Baroda. Vibhuti Sharma is awarded National Academy Award in print making, 53rd National Exhibition of Art. Anjum and Ghazala are from Aligarh University.

The show displays works in prints using various printmaking techniques and based on a variety of themes.

The show is starting on 12th August 2013 and will be on till the 14th of September 2013.

Open Studio of Kartik Sood

1Shanthi Road, Bangalore and Latitude 28, Delhi present open studios with the works of young resident artist, Kartik Sood. The artist’s earlier works are also on display and the work done during his residency. Kartik is a Delhi College of Art graduate and has a post graduate degree in painting from the MS University Baroda. He also is the recipient of the Nasreen Mohammedi Scholarship.

Kartik works across many mediums and often uses a singular theme or idea to commence the series he plans out. Starting out with a photograph he later incorporates the theme in paintings, drawings sculptures, videos and new media installations. 

The works are on show till the 15th of August 2013.

(News reports by Sushma Sabnis)

FEATURE

Colossal Figure

Painter, author and teacher A. Ramachandran has explored new dimensions in art. Select works of the artist will be displayed in Kochi from August 11 to 25.

(Artist A. Ramachandran)

Considered to be the most unique retrospective exhibition of an artist ever presented in the country, the ‘A. Ramachandran Retrospective’ of the National Gallery of Modern Art (2003) had several singular features in terms of curation, publication and display. A part of the project was planned for presentation in Thiruvananthapuram, the birthplace of the artist. But it did not materialise due to certain lags in hospitality. The National Gallery of Modern Art could not hold the works for a long time as the lending period agreement with the collectors had expired due to the prolonged delay for the Thiruvananthapuram exhibition.

Organising a retrospective show on Ramachandran by procuring works from its collectors demands multiple responsibilities and extreme physical and unseen financial burdens. Hence the National Gallery withdrew from the scene in 2005 and returned the art works to their owners. Vadera Art Gallery, New Delhi, however, is now organising a special exhibition of the artist entitled ‘Selected Works of Ramachandran: from 1964-2012’ at the Durbar Hall, Kochi, featuring the Vadera collection and the Ramachandran collection. Paintings, sculptures, graphics, drawings and photographic prints of works will be included in the show at the exhibition to be held from August 11 to 25. Eminent art historian R. Sivakumar is curating the exhibition.

(A work on display at the show)

Painter, sculptor, designer, researcher, author and teacher, A. Ramachandran occupies a distinct stature in the modern and contemporary art of the country. He began his interesting career as a vocalist-singer at All India Radio, Thiruvananthapuram during 1954-57. Then he left Kerala for Shantiniketan to become a painter.

He was already a postgraduate in Malayalam language and literature and had a very lively student life at the University College in the capital city, along with N. Mohanan, G. Aravindan, O.N.V.Kurup, G. Sankarapillai and Sugathakumari as college mates, and N. Krishnapillai and Ananthakuttan as teachers, and P. Kesavadev, as a senior colleague at All India Radio.

The Shantiniketan period of Ramachandran was ameliorated with the presence of great teachers such as Ramkinger Baij (whom he already sought as a teacher before reaching Shantiniketan) and Binod Behari Mukherjee, and, of course, his colleague and life partner Tan Chameli. It was also the formative period that enabled him to see visual art practices as a part of the broad spectrum of expressions such as theatre, classical, folk and tribal arts on the pan-Indian and pan-Asian scale.

Though Ramachandran identified himself with the Shantiniketan legacy, his paintings of this period reflected the modernist approach, both in medium and execution on par with the modernists of his generation. But what made him different was the strength of his precision in terms of the images of human figures and concepts which derived from intellectual sources of European-Indian literature.

Described by critics like Richard Barthlome as 'apocalyptic vision', his representation of deformed and diseased bodies of headless human images carried a romantic drama evoking the existential anguish and identity crisis on larger than life size canvases that created a distinctive gaze in Indian art. Further, proceeding to other canvases of this period one encounters the discursive traits of a socio-political content with direct references to the fascist power and the suffering of humanity.

( Works on display at the show)

The ‘Anatomy lesson’ (1971) – the most important painting belonging to this period – is represented in this exhibition as artist’s collection. ‘The audience’ (1972) and the etchings and drawings done as preparatory studies as well as independent works will be a part of the show.

Over the years, Ramachandran did research on several forms of expressions which led him to assimilate various streams of practices and the life of people. When Ramachandran started research on the mural paintings of Kerala in 1967 it was quite an unknown area. He had travelled throughout Kerala, identified the areas and copied the murals, including the making of structural diagrams of the temples. It took almost 30 years for completing the project that materialised into a large volume in 2004. The research he undertook for designs, children’s books, illustrations, curatorial work and personal writings belong to a rare and incisive passion for painting and sculpture.

As he followed the Indian miniatures and Russian icons, he devoted himself to them, reinterpreted the art with a contemporary vision without distorting the language for sensational artistic ends. And, when he painted the mural spaces of ‘Yayathi’ (1984), Ramachandran explored the great depths of pan Indian-Asian cultures and manifested epic dimensions on canvas.

Synthesising a new iconography of human figuration, which corresponds with the human proportions of down to earth men and women, and refining it with the streams of folk/tribal arts of rural India, Ramachandran has evolved a radical figurative language in painting and sculpture. The images of people that appear in his later works are as simple as they are but at times transform into mythical characters in the organic flow of nature.

In the macro and micro cosmos of the universe, the artist himself appears humbly on the sides of the pictures, sometimes as a bat hanging upside down on the tree, a tortoise in water, or a bird taking off from the tree. Artists like Ramachandran continue to inspire the generations by unveiling the alternate spaces of contemporary art which counter the Euro-centric projects of the modern and post-modern.

Sivakumar will be providing curatorial notes on the exhibits along with the Vadera catalogue on selected works(1964-2013).

(Report by Ajayakumar for The Hindu)