Nari Shakti,The Body in Indian Art, Pyramids and Painting and more..

NEWS

Nari Shakti: A story of women empowerment

(A work on display)

Azad Bhavan of Indian Centre for Cultural Relations(ICCR) presents an exhibition 'Nari Shakti: A Story of Women Empowerment'. The exhibition will showcase the Madhubhani and Patachitra Paintings. Four rural women artists will be displaying their work based on women empowerment. 

Khushbu Kumari and Anita Devi will be showcasing their paintings at the exhibition. Givahi, and Madhubani, Bihar based Khushbu Kumari will be exhibiting the paintings of Radha Krishna in a traditional style, and Anita Devi will be displaying her Godhna works and paintings on garments in vibrant colours.

The paintings from Patachitra, unique folk tradition of Bengal, will also be on the display. In this traditional style, mythological stories are painted on long scrolls with the natural colour and dyes. Mamoni Chitrakar and Rupsona Chitrakar are the artists who will be exhibiting some of their works.

The show is on view till 2nd October 2013.

Of Pyramids and Painting

(Work by Pramod Thakur)

The Artists’ Centre, Mumbai presents a unique show by two artists. The show titled ‘Pyramids and Painting’ displays the exclusive works of Pramod Thakur and Kavita Thakur.

Pramod Thakur is a versatile artist who loves using various mediums like oil, acrylic, mix-media, pen and ink. He excels at creating figurative paintings and has been awarded with various prizes for his artworks.

Artist Kavita Thakur creates magic on the canvas each time she picks up her brush. The splash of colours she uses in her paintings border on abstraction and depict a movement of fleeting vibrantly coloured forms.

The show is on view till the 29th September 2013.

Of landscapes and abstraction

(Work by Vivia Valentina)

La Galerie D’Expression, Chennai, presents a painting exhibition of artist Vivia Valentina. The gallery has always encouraged solo and group exhibitions on a regular basis and this exhibition is another exquisite one.

Vivia Valentina is a self taught artist from Chennai. She has been an ardent lover of art since childhood, which was evident in her school, college and even in the corporate sector. Having a creative mind, she took to working in acrylic media for the past 2 years. 

The exhibition display articulates the beauty of nature through landscapes. Her work is mostly contemporary but she is also an experimentalist and tries out different forms of art from time to time using heavy textural work and vibrant colours.

The show is on view till 30th September 2013.

The Body in Indian Art

( A work to be displayed at the show )

The Bozar Galleries in Brussels, will be presenting a unique exhibition in their galleries. Titled, ‘The Body in Indian Art’, the show will mark the inauguration of ‘Europalia - India 2013’ on 4th October 2013.

The show with multiple venues, focuses on various ways in which the human body has inspired creativity, intrigue and enquiry into form. Curated by Naman Ahuja, Associate Professor of Ancient Indian Art and architecture at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in collaboration with the Indian Centre for Cultural Relations (ICCR), this show delves into seven specific thematics: Death, the end of the body, Birth and rebirth, the place of astrology and cosmology in determining the fortunes of the body; the nature of divine bodies; heroism and ideal bodies; asceticism and the development of practices of healing and yoga; it explores the body in rapture, possessed, by art, by nature. 

The exhibition comprises of 350 objects of art selected from 55 museums and private collections from all over the world displayed in a 22,500 sq ft area, focusing on the body as interpreted and surveyed in Indian culture.

The show is on till 5th January 2014.

(News reports by Sushma Sabnis)

FEATURE

Art out-of-the-box

Subin Kalarickal uses unconventional and unexpected means for artistic expression

(One of Subin's work using dust)

It was during his third year of computer science engineering at the Government Engineering College in Thrissur that Subin Kalarickal decided that his real passion lay in art and design. The 24-year-old, who has been drawing and sketching since his school days, then decided to take up his interest in earnest and joined Saltmangotree, an advertising agency, to widen his portfolio, going on to create many unconventional works using materials ranging from salt and spices to coffee.

Subin, who hails from Kalloorkadu near Muvattupuzha, has always been open to new ideas, and it was a work that he did on a whim that launched him on his path of experimentation with materials. “I used to make artwork and upload them on Facebook as part of my job, and those would get a few likes, but the response would be lukewarm. Then one day, I spotted a vehicle belonging to one of my co-workers lying outside with its windows coated in dust. I used the dust as a canvas and made works depicting Che Guevara and Sachin Tendulkar, and when I shared those on Facebook the response was tremendous, so I started looking for more out-of-the box ideas,” says Subin.

(Artisit Subin Kalarickal with one of his graffiti projects.)

He then began considering sand art, but was dissuaded because stable sand art is best done on fine quality sand which in some cases has to be imported. This roadblock caused him to try another experiment, and the result was a portrait of actor Mammootty created entirely out of salt. Subin used the same principle again when he was required to come up with a promotion involving spices, and went on to make a portrait of Jawaharlal Nehru on the occasion of Nehru’s birth anniversary by laying out spices and rearranging them to create the likeness.

While coming up with creative campaigns and designs to promote products is something he loves, Subin wants to go further and work on product design, something he believes his degree in engineering will help with. “I have always loved advertising art and product designing. Someday I plan to take up a design course, and as the seats available for these courses in India are not too many, I’m trying to create as versatile a portfolio as I can,” says Subin before describing one of his ideas, an iron box with a strap on top that allows the user to slide their entire palm into it for more precise movements.

(Subin's work made from spices)

One of Subin’s more recent materials of choice is coffee, and he plans to create a work using coffee (the beverage sans milk) on a canvas the size of a large room. The query about how many bags of coffee beans this endeavour may require is answered with a smile, “I have already used coffee to make a sketch of Rajinikanth to commemorate his birthday, and that received great reviews on Youtube, so I’m definitely going ahead with my larger project when the circumstances are right,” he says. A quick search on YouTube is all it takes to bring up a video of the work being created; with coffee being poured from a spoon to create artistic stains that come together to make up the actor’s face.

Apart from the work done within office walls, (literally, as the walls of the office he works at are covered in Subin’s artwork), he has also worked on a graffiti project that decorates the parking lot of the Pai Dosa eatery in the city, a project he worked on with some friends. Despite his proclivity for art in its various forms, Subin says he has had no formal training in the craft, and hopes to get better at what he does by getting admitted to one of the design courses available in the country.

Now that he has dabbled in doodles, graffiti, salt, spice and beverages, does he have any new projects on the anvil? The answer is given after some contemplation, almost as if he is visualising the work take shape, “I am considering arranging colour paper, like sticky notes, into a large work. Something that makes no sense if you are standing close to it, but slowly materialises as you step back and look at the big picture,” he concludes.

Subin’s work can be followed on Facebook at facebook.com/ArtistSubinkalarickal.

(Report by Sooraj Rajmohan, Photos by K K Mustafa for The Hindu)