Prologue, Spandan - Jaipur and more..

NEWS

Prologue

(work on display)

Vinnyasa Premier Art Gallery, Chennai is hosting a solo art exhibition of the recent works by eminent artist Niladri Paul. This exhibition will be display paintings that create a wonderful bridge between abstract and figurative styles of painting.

Niladri Paul is one of the eminent contemporary artists of the country today. In his current series titled, ‘Prologue’ he tries to capture in abstractions the figures and eloquent movements of various dance forms and nuances of stage and cinema. Dancers in various mudras are brought to life in acrylic on canvases in vibrant colour and form, where the intensity of the intangibility of an art form is made tangible with skill and finesse.

The show is on view till 30th March 2014.

Spandan Jaipur

(work on display)

Jawahar Kala Kendra, Jaipur presents ‘Spandan’, Jaipur’s premier National Art Fair platform for modern and contemporary artists and galleries to showcase their latest creations and collections. It is considered to be among world's most attended fairs as it attracts over thousands of visitors from all across India and the world.

On view are works of 25 groundbreaking artists, who, each in their own time and style, created a new movement in the history of arts. This year the fair aims at taking it a step ahead by delivering a truly enriching art experience to all the visitors.

The art fair is on from 11th April to 16th April 2014.

Anubhuti

Kamalnayan Bajaj Art gallery, Mumbai presents a solo show titled, ‘Anubhuti’ of artwork by artist Shakti Singh Ahlawat, from Haryana. The work displayed has a tendency to lean on the linearity of strokes. While dealing with female figures he gives the impression of going for delicate as well as bold strokes and chromatic harmony; but when he goes to paint rural folk, his approach and technique change.

Strong with line, Shakti Singh has also produced some fine paintings such as “Krishna”. His realistic approach of course speaks a lot for him and his art’s growth. He does wonderful portraits as well in which he excels.

The show is on view from 31st March to 5th April 2014.

(News reports by Sushma Sabnis)

FEATURE

The lost world

Bangalore-based illustrator/cartoonist Paul Fernandes says his exhibition is a gentle reminder of a vanished paradise

(A slice of Bangalore)

From a pensioner’s paradise where gentlemen in suits riding cycles doff their hats to women with parasols in front of pretty cottages and Colonial lamp-posts, the garden city where the retired man had the luxury of his own garden, to the pub city (with pubs for pensioners, the ‘upper crust’, black-out pub with a free drop home, under world pub and the under age pub), the boom town of real state (complete with parts of old houses up for sale), to the “SillyCon” city, Bangalore (Bungaleuru… Bengaluroo… Bangaluru) has undergone a transformation.

And Paul Fernandes, known for his colourful and detailed illustrations of the city as it was around the 70s, showcases this transformation in a series of black and white-sketches.

The work culminates in a poster, “SillyCon City- The Virtual Reality”, a contrast in many ways to his earlier classic, a poster of M.G.Road as it was then. Paul’s illustrations are currently on display at the Indian Cartoon Gallery in the exhibition ‘Bangalore- Swinging in the 70s’.

The exhibition features both the newer illustrations and his older sketches of old Bangalore, showcasing icons like the Dewar’s bar, the Airlines Hotel, the Victoria Hotel, or the 3 Aces (Cabaret), Everest Talkies or Kohinoor. He also captures the sights and sounds of old Bangalore, of the Bangalore club in 1863, horse carriages on South Parade(‘Traffic on South Parade’), a woman at the Museum Road Post Office in a sidecar, wheelies outside Mount Carmel College or of eggs delivered to the house.

According to Paul, his distinctly humourous cartoons/illustrations are a mixture of styles, of history, documentation and architecture.

“The series on the SillyCon city is a spoof of what happens in the city,” says Paul. “So little has been done preserve the heritage of the city so just looking at this old peaceful slice of life would remind people of the way the city was. The exhibition is a gentle reminder of a paradise that is lost.”

“Even though the old must make way for the new, I wonder if it is possible to give the new buildings some thought.”

‘Bangalore- Swinging in the 70s’ will be on view at the Indian Cartoon Gallery, No.1, Midford House, Midford Garden, off M.G. Road, near Big Kids Kemp, Trinity Circle. For details, contact 9980091428.

(Report by Harshini Vakkalanka for The Hindu)

Video Art at BDL Museum, Cultural Colours, Chitramela 2014 and more..

NEWS

Video Art at BDL Museum

( work by Baiju Parthan)

Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai launches its new program, ‘Video Art’ at the Education centre. Curated by Gayatri Sinha, the program titled,’ Critical Collective’ showcases a series of compilations of the works of artists whose practice involves video and multi-media.

Feature addresses urbanism, societal change and the metaphors of scientific development to interrogate the impact of globalism. While the work ‘The Panic City’ by Gigi Scaria induces vertigo, the interrogation of colonial processes in Raqs Media’s 'Surface' mark the dislocations of progress. Baiju Parthan, Gigi Scaria and Sheba Chhachhi create evocations around the passage of time and the changes it effects.The viewing will run over a 12 month period in monthly editions. The first edition examines 6 artists/groups whose works explore the conflicted issue of change and urbanism. 

Starting on 1st of March 2014, from 4:30 to 5:30 pm, these editions will be screened every Saturday at the same time.

Cultural Colours

(work on display)

Vinnyasa Premier Art gallery, Chennai presents the works of artist Mohan S Jadhav, from Maharashtra. The show titled, ‘Cultural Colours’ has on display his work which includes colourful paintings of  Kathakali dancers, festivals exclusively celebrated for bullocks, and camels.

Mohan works as a freelance artist. He paints in watercolours, oils and acrylic. His paintings are basically based on rural imagery, farmers, bullock carts, fishermen, boats, pet animals, riverscapes, flowers and heritage monuments.

The show is on view from 1st March to 10th March 2014.

Chitramela 2014

Achalam Art Gallery, Chennai is having an International Art Exhibition, ‘Chitramela 2014’ at its venue for a duration of two weeks. Paintings, drawings, sculptures and photographs from artists all around the world will be displayed in this exhibition. 

The exhibition aims to act as a platform for young upcoming talent and renowned masters’ works to be displayed for the benefit of art lovers and buyers and collectors alike.

The show will be on view till 9th March 2014.

The young and restless

( work on display)

La Galerie D’Expression, Chennai presents the works of artist S J Jaya Goutham.  The artist is from Chennai and at a young age of 20 has already displayed his work in most of the major galleries in the city. He is currently in his second year pursuing his Bachelor of Visual Arts at the Chitrakala College of Fine Arts at Bangalore. He has completed his technical examinations in free hand outline and model drawing.

He started his journey of art and painting in the year 2008 and has explored the heights of his imaginations. He has received awards from many notable people, couple of them being Dr APJ Abdul Kalam and Mr Surjit Singh Barnala.

On display at the show are a selection if his exquisite figurative and emotional works. 

The show is on view till 28th February 2014.

( News reports by Sushma Sabnis)

FEATURE

Aam in Art

As politics gets messier, the common man finds a voice on the canvases of Siva Kesav Rao.

(Some of the works from Rao’s exhibition based on the issues of jal satyagraha, riots in Muzaffarnagar and blasts in Sivakasi, etc.)

All isn’t well and it clearly reflects in Siva Kesav Rao’s works on display at Lalit Kala Akademi (LKA). At times faceless, in grief, struggling to survive, in conflict with those in power, they surround the viewer in the top hall of the gallery space. The monochrome in charcoal brings out the pathos even more strongly with the density of black absorbing the onlooker totally. All 40 pieces of Rao, mostly in charcoal barring a few in dry pastels and oils, are rooted in our daily lives, and they go on to include the latest growing phenomenon of protest and agitation. Ask the Hyderabad-based artist if the movements of Arvind Kejriwal and Anna Hazare ignited this body of work, and Rao reveals that he has remained preoccupied with socio-political subjects for a while, before street agitations became the norm.

(work from Rao’s exhibition based on the issues of jal satyagraha, riots in Muzaffarnagar and blasts in Sivakasi, etc.)

A particularly interesting work is a 30-year-old painting depicting a muscled man occupying a seat of authority. This canvas flanks a work which has Mahatma Gandhi on it, whereas on the other side of the painting of Gandhi is one depicting the current Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, wearing dark black glasses and a wristwatch with no hands. The artist recollects the past through Gandhi who went on to become Father of the Nation, then casts a gaze at the present through the portrayal of the current Prime Minister, considered reticent, and then hints at the future of Indian polity through an unlikely person wielding control. “The painting became relevant today so I included it,” says Rao who also incorporated a few Gandhi works from his last year’s series on him. Rao who studied at Hyderabad College of Fine Arts and M.S. University Baroda has also mastered the craft of natural dyeing and hand block printing.

(Some of the works from Rao’s exhibition based on the issues of jal satyagraha, riots in Muzaffarnagar and blasts in Sivakasi, etc.)

“Something dreadful happens today, we talk about it and then forget it the next minute. At least these works will create a record of the happenings around us if nothing else. In any case I am not interested in drawing room art. Art should be socially provocative,” says Rao pointing at his dense works on unmanned railway tracks, child labour, corruption and communalism, etc.

(Some of the works from Rao’s exhibition based on the issues of jal satyagraha, riots in Muzaffarnagar and blasts in Sivakasi, etc.)

And nothing else except the medium of charcoal, which is difficult and not that popular, would have done justice to the subject enabling the artist to employ the chiaroscuro technique successfully, which then brings out the poignant mood portrayed. Two women crying, holding each other, mourning the loss of their beloved ones in a fireworks unit blast at Sivakasi, is one such example.

(Some of the works from Rao’s exhibition based on the issues of jal satyagraha, riots in Muzaffarnagar and blasts in Sivakasi, etc.)

But even where he leaves the company of charcoal to take to oil, Rao remains as effective. In a work on the Muzaffarnagar riots, which is from his future series, Rao says, he is trying to express more with colour and form. A sparsely populated canvas with three figures, out of which two are injured kids lying down while the third one looks away with clenched jaws, has the red on the faces and hands of the sufferers, communicating their angst. His division of canvases into triangles also adds novelty to the work. There is another set of works, again from Rao’s future series, in which he is experimenting with colour and form. These are to do with agitators and their psychology.

At Gallery 8, Lalit Kala Akademi, till March 1st, 2014.

( Report by Shailaja Tripathi for The Hindu)