OUTSIDE THE TIME WARP: USHERING IN CHANGE
Featured here are 3 group exhibitions that were on display at different times from March to May in the capital. These displays made eloquent and impactful statements with works on view by different artists spanning mediums ranging from works on paper to mixed media, sculptures, photography, site specific installations and video presentations.
DHOOMIMAL GALLERY
Lines (By) Lines: An Exploration of Linearity in South Asian art from the 20th Century to the Present was on display at Dhoomimal Gallery in New Delhi. It was an immersive showcase of abstract art by 30 leading South Asian and diaspora artists from the 20th Century to the present. This display spanned a range of processes and artistic mediums and presented works by some of the most influential names in art such as V.S. Gaitonde, S. H. Raza, F. N Souza, J Swaminathan, Nasreen Mohamedi, Zarina Hashmi and Mehlli Gobhai.
South Asian contemporary artists showcased included Rana Begum, Gopi Gajwani, Shobha Broota, Parul Gupta, Shruti Mahajan, Rewati Shahani, Noor Ali Chagani, Niyeti Chaddha, Meghana Gavireddygari, Purvai Rai, Al-Qawi Nanavati and Varun Desai amongst others.
Though the curatorial theme can be seen in all the works that the exhibition brings together, the expression of that theme is wildly divergent.
Rewati Shahani, White 4, 2020, Dhoomimal Gallery and Sohan Qadri, Untitled, 1984, Dhoomimal Gallery
FN Souza‘s work titled Sunny Landscape, depicts a sunny landscape with daubs of bright yellow, crisscrossed by blue lines and reflects Souza’s expressionist penchant for bold use of colour and line. J. Swaminathan‘s oil on canvas is a testimony to his commitment to tribal art and spiritual and mystical imagery. Zarina Hashmi‘s composition is a portfolio of monochromatic etchings from her famous Santa Cruz series. Nasreen Mohamedi ‘s untitled work which was on display is characteristic of her oeuvre and is a celebration of the minimal.
Multimedia artist and designer Purvai Rai‘s site- specific installation Blanket of the Earth from the series Founding Roots stood out prominently at the display. Varun Desai‘s video and digital installation titled Dimensions used lines to visualise Euclidean geometry. Visakh Menon‘s interface in mixed media was presented as a digital NFT as well. Al-Qawi Nanavati, in her displayed series titled Fragments, has worked with paper pulp and thread.
Shruti Mahajan’s artworks that were exhibited deftly explored the complexities of identity, spaces, home and belongingness. These are recurrent themes in her works. Rewati Shahani‘s work was a porcelain sculpture etched with lines and a single emphatic line in deep red colour running through it.
Meghana Gavireddygari‘s offering was a sculpture titled Partition Book Exchange made from books, Banaras silk and gold leaf.
All works on view explored linearity in their own unique way. What tied them together in this show was Manmeet K Walia’s curatorial vision. Calling it a time travel show, Manmeet Walia said, “The show is designed to take the viewer on an exploration through time, presenting insights to the lives and works of artists from the subcontinent who have used linearity as a tool to respond to their times, to create languages and new worlds through their art.”
GALLERY ART POSITIVE
Constructing narratives: Art in the New Normal was on display at Gallery Art Positive in New Delhi. Curated by Georgina Maddox, the show featured seven leading artists: Bose Krishnamachari, Farhad Hussain, George Martin, Mukesh Sharma, Murali Cheeroth, Om Soorya and Vijay Sharma showcasing works that reflect on the need for change in a post-pandemic scenario.
The exhibition addressed some of the pressing challenges that currently plague the world and the human race, COVID-19 and its fast mutating variants, disruption of the earth’s natural ecosystem, ecological imbalances, the resultant climate change and global warming being in the forefront. The exhibit with many crisscrossing strands focused on the dire need to bring about a change yet it held space for multiple interpretations of the works on display.
Vijay Sharma‘s art combines elements from miniature paintings, history,contemporary objects, personal memory, dreams and fantasy. His miniature style portrait of an isolated and expressionless royal figure is executed with intricate detailing of the elegance and grandeur of royalty. His own presence in the canvas as a miniature jeans-clad urban observer or bystander points to the changing times and the disappearing feudal structures that give way to what the curator Georgina Maddox terms as ‘a cosmopolitan identity.’
Bose Krishnamachari’s four works are recent. Two of these works are newer additions to his Stretched Bodies series but are smaller in size. These are abstracts in vibrant colours. The other two untitled works are monochromes in graphite and depict stark polarities. The four works come together as emotional responses of the artist to the difficult times faced during the pandemic.
Farhad Hussain‘s works are striking visual stories about the trivial and mundane aspects of the everyday business of living. He approaches these images with a touch of humour, wit and sarcasm. His series of works are a mélange of vibrant colours against backdrops that bring out their richness and vibrancy. They are replete with references to popular culture, mythology, gender reversal and make nuanced digs on the dynamics of human relationships and their subtle complexities.
George Martin, Edge of Chaos, Acrylic on Canvas, Gallery Art Positive and Om Surya, Luminous Twilight II, Acrylic on Canvas, Gallery Art Positive
George Martin‘s subject matter borrows heavily from his present environment. His brightly coloured works use a lot of domestic objects and local references. His densely populated compositions are engagingly energetic and bring in many species on the same canvas. Aptly titled Inlaid Anecdotes, the series highlights the transitory and disunited state of urban societies. Om Soorya‘s two works are like the emblems of the twilight zone- neither here nor there titled Luminous Twilight I & 2. While the world is contracting to the space of a shell, the innovative and imaginative space is exploding to new sensibilities. He suggests the existence of multiple worlds by depicting multiple shells in the same frame.
Murali Cheeroth, Ecosophical Notes I and II, Acrylic on Canvas, 2022, Gallery Art Positive
In Murali Cheeroth‘s series of small format canvases with ornate frames, one is invited to reflect on the tragedy of urban spaces impinging on nature. Metaphors of urban existence are placed on the wings of a bird, which support reckless urbanisation at the cost of harming natural resources and disrupting the ecological balance. The vibrantly coloured series with ominous undertones is titled Ecosophical Notes.
Mukesh Sharma is a painter, printmaker and installation artist known for expressing himself through diverse media, materials, drawing, images of past work, and memories. He collects e -waste and uses old keyboards, screens and other e-scrap in his artworks. One of his works embodies a compass made out of computer keys pasted on a fabric; the four cardinal points North, South, East and West are marked explicitly. There is an irony in these signs because the pandemic lockdown protocol has completely restricted travel and mobility. There are four small print works to the right in which buildings, roads, etc are made in the same keyboard pattern. A black curtain points at there being a window which allows us to peep outside.
ART CENTRIX SPACE
BRINK, a group show curated by Monica Jain, was held at the extended and renovated Art Centrix Space in New Delhi. The exhibition featured paintings, photographs and sculptures by 7 contemporary artists – Tom Vattakuzhy, Ganesh Gohain, KP Pradeep Kumar, Bhargav Barla, Bholanath Rudra, Shalina Vichitra and Neeraj Patel.
In Monica Jain’s (the curator-director of Art Centrix Space) words, “The curatorial premise -BRINK, primarily foregrounds the idea of the artist being a harbinger of change – one who is painfully aware that life has presented an unprecedented opportunity for the world to come together with urgency in order to achieve something that has been never possible singularly so far.” The title, BRINK, generates a sense of being at the edge of something powerful where reimagining and revaluating actions and practices are not only imperative but critical.
Kerala-based artist Tom Vattakuzhy showcased his works created during the years 2020 and 2021 in the display. These carefully rendered oil on canvas works have sombre, subdued colours and are rich in light effects. The work, Slumber depicts a young man in deep sleep, the colour tones and the lighting giving it a surreal splendour. In Birds, dramatic intensity is created through the juxtaposition of human presence with several planes or depths of field: we can see a bit of the front yard, the threshold of the house , the veranda and the door leading to interior of the house, it is heightened by the sombre colours and the light effects. For Vattakuzhy, art is a solitary, meditative experience. He calls himself “a painter of interiors — interiors of lives I see around, lives of the silenced, the marginalised, and the alienated.”
Also on display were paintings by contemporary artist Ganesh Gohain from Vadodara. His artistic practice juxtaposes the concreteness of sculpture with abstract, reflective painting. His works on display are deeply rooted in the universal human search for meaning.
KP Pradeep’s artistic practice predominately revolves around human figures and their interaction with rural and native landscapes in a contemporary context. Delusion, destitution, a fear of eviction and deportation are a few of the preoccupations of his oeuvre. “My paintings are an outcome of my obsession with nature”says the artist. Birds and trees are recurring motifs in his works dotted with flora and fauna.
Bhargav Barla‘s artworks are single-image narratives and present poignant images of dreams and nostalgia. His photographs invite the viewer to look beyond what meets the eye. His current body of works that were on display are autobiographical in nature and centre around his roots in a small city. These photographic works particularly revolve around the idea of the sea as a bystander, an observer and a constant companion.
Shalina Vichitra works with acrylics and mixed media. She employs metaphors from cartography , geographical images and architectural plans to address the themes of belonging. On display was her installation titled Continuum.
Bholanath Rudra primarily employs the soft, luminous and transparent quality of watercolours to create surreal works.
His paintings explore the crisis humans face due to the mindless and reckless destruction of nature. On display were his watercolours titled Interspace, Reflection of Love and Broken Windows.
Neeraj Patel‘s artistic practice delves into the implications of space by creating monochromatic paper works. He documents urban construction sites to expose the dichotomy of development and destruction that comes with rapid industrialization. His recent body of work is an outcome of his ongoing interdisciplinary project Game, Ground and Brown.
These exhibitions with their unique and multi themed curatorial visions bearing myriad associations gave the visitors varied means of engaging with and interpreting the art processes.
Text by Prachi Goyal
Image Courtesy: Dhoomimal Gallery, Gallery Art Positive, and Art Centrix Space
Find more about the Galleries, Artists and their Artworks:
https://www.dhoomimalgallery.art/
https://www.galleryartpositive.com/exhibitions_inner.php?id=1899
