Inner voices - outer masks | 1st - 30th May 2019 | Amber Fort, Jaipur

Inner voices - outer masks  | 133rd show by Gallery Artchill

Art, since prehistoric times, has influenced man. Art can speak where words fail. Nature offers us pictorial and aesthetic beauty as images and ideas. Today’s painters of the Contemporary World  seem to be  melancholic modernists who create works that trick the eye and have an added edge of surreal dimensions. Their paintings, Graphics or Sculptures may not be muted in color or form , but they are bold and powerful and always carrying a story to narrate. The textures that they add to each canvas echo the trials and tribulations of observations they all ponder over in the everyday idiom of lifestyles and living.

Inner voices- Outer masks,  surveys a body of work that leaves itself incisively open, somewhere between being created and wholly complete. For each of the artists, who create intimate glimpses of uncanny worlds and mindscapes suffused with an atmosphere of the unknown and paranoia , change is an inevitable development. Processes and the possibility of instability, openness, and perpetual transformation underlie the creation and understanding of all the exhibited works. After all you require quite a spiritual effort to effect an exact  transformation  of the raw life experience into palpable art .

Vijender Sharma, who excels in the Art of the figure has spent 2 decades probing for the hidden pulse behind appearances. He was particularly attracted to subjects and thinkers who looked beneath the surface of the modern world – to create corollaries where even a stone wall seems to have a secret life. Painted in over two formats of depth and abstraction the experimental stylization of figural form which he developed  has coalesced into a confident, subtle, yet deeply elegant visual archetype which recurs throughout his works, particularly as he returns form abstraction to figurative portrayals.

Some of the strongest & serious compositions in this show are works by PN CHOYAL a strong & committed artist, his multi-nuanced compositions have the vital rhythm of lived life. Also to create vitality& dynamism in an animate mass is a difficult proposition. This demands not only a good plastic sensibility but in addition the capacity to redo this same sensibility into objective material forms. P N CHOYAL deserves high praise for his expressive brushwork , the special realism, and even at the moments the psychological penetration . He has no intention to flatter humans, rather he rests out of the human frame , or out of any organic frame, images of power and movement , and of the feel of reality behind appearances.

Gazing at huge works of Jagdish Chander , we find that it is not normal portraiture, but a method of working out human faces wherein each detail is knit in a pattern, and that pattern overrules the separate details of a face. Apparently, the artist aimed to electrify the whole of his compositions, so that viewers strongly winced; for his work is not designed to be a polite, or pretty one, but the very foundational base of our being :in his work the heart is laid bare, tellingly. A sensory contact with an outer as well as inner mental environment occurs - which the deeper physical, emotional and the rational centers receive and interpret.

Akash Choyal’s life is art, his art is dream and the dream is his reality itself, says Sandro Orlandi the Italian Curator on his art -  The artworks are made of a never-ending alternation of reality and dream, art and life and so they create a dance that shows, hides and intertwine rationality, the deepest and most intimate ego and imagination. Using a Freudian terminology, Akash lives and creates in a state of “preconscious” that means it swings between conscious and unconscious creating a rare, uncertain, mysterious and above all sincere dimension. In the dream everything is possible, the mathematical rules, society’s strict limitations and the influences both cultural and physical are completely absent. The spirit is free to create wondering about this world, accessible only by who is able to dream, to lose control and so to be sincere and natural.

In this curated show  Akbar Padamsee’s magnetic watercolor with three faces with expressions as if in interlock, is on display alongside a mixed media early work by Paritosh Sen, who is known for his vivid illustrations of everyday urban life. His strokes are bold and stylized which help his human figures express a myriad of emotions.  In current scenario of TERROR  making its marks everywhere , Dharmendra Rathore’s works give a message to the youth- it is the duty of the new generation and the youth of the world to choose issues like world peace, green peace and adopting healthy environment over such violent and harmful options. We need to remove the band of glamour and misguidance from our eyes, as the misuse of strength and power always leads to the exploitation of the women and nature. Abbas Batliwala has an uncanny talent to combine complexity & simplicity to great visual effect in his amazing compositions. Surendra Pal Joshi’s work explores the leitmotif of the textural idioms which arouses an unbridled pleasure, it leads invariably to an addictive idiom of continuous stimulation-by-image & a loss of correspondence between real-world imperatives & inner-world fantasies: reflecting in some ways the conditions of artistic practices within the broader domain of expressive culture.

Dileep Sharma chooses to focus on the dynamic and dramatic changes in the field of sports, both on and off the field, as well as the gradual blurring of these once-separate realms. His work is a satirical take on sports figures who are today recognized more for their activities off the field than on it. The demi-god status of these icons is amplified through the positioning of smaller surrounding figures literally looking up at them in dazed wonderment. Jai Zharotia puts the real world on trial, masking and unmasking identities, subjugating the puppets to his will. Games of manipulation and illusion are not merely performed in the circus ring but also played out in social and political situations. For Jai the puppeteer, juggler and the clown represent the interface of the comic and tragic forces that co-exist in our daily life.

Shahid Parwez’s  sense of humour which arises from the perception & depiction of incongruities of existence rules  his work ,yet over all treatment is a subtle blend of an adult's experience & a child like fantasy. His satirical take in many works like  ‘Who wants to grow up’  & ‘Let me Judge you’ invite great admiration. Kanchan Chander’s powerful installations on NEW Goddess of today, the multitasking woman who perceives her varied roles & plays them to the hilt have as much impact as her works from series ‘Frida & Me’ .  The oil semi nude by Sumahendra, who since bygone ages is suffering silently behind the closed doors , powerless in every sense of the word : the brick structure indicates she has a secure home but in reality she has never owned any property nor  was she given any decision making power. His tempera work on ‘Sati’ the rooted woman in Indian traditions is an impactful work. Moumita Ghosh is also an unapologetically personal storyteller of reality, hyper reality and fantasy & every work  of hers has multiple elements, these are stories that coexist or interlock, just like simultaneous strands of life. So, what could have been a fragmented, dislocated vision becomes instead a slice from life's composite mosaic. At times she cakes the faces with opaque color or streaks them. In their 'make-up', the faces reveal a gamut of emotions. Some faces, like the clown's, defy iconographic conventions. 

Sant Kumar a young emerging painter portraying expressive ethereal smoky faces says , ‘ I take cue from smoky reflections of ME & YOU mirrored in illusions which sometimes flare up & sometimes extinguish….. these colored images pour down with a gust of wind & splatter of rain….I feel I am a drone in never ending season of colors’. Artist Ganga Singh  deftly uses elements of abstraction, distortion and simplification to create an alternative world and life where the physical and mystical co-inhabit. ‘’My paintings are based on my response to nature. They are modern designs with a strong primitive and tribal influence. Symmetry plays an important role in my painting with powerful and simplified forms.’’ Ashish Shringi’s body of works in the last two decades has remained inspired by the Tantrik symbolism and traditional art forms of Rajasthan. Living in Bundi the essence of his art always bears the fragrance of nativity. In his paintings he has widely used Tantrik Yantras and symbols contextualizing them with his personal experiences of human relationships. His compositions are highly complex, multidimensional and inter-weaved with multiple perspectives. 

Manoj Mitra who mastered watercolors as well as oils decades ago is enchanted only by female forms amid natural surroundings. He feels that sometimes a very calm looking woman could be hiding smoldering fire within of high magnitude, or could be hiding several layers of shocking secrets whereas a beautiful person could be discovered as being flat in expression& totally devoid of emotion. Subrata’s paintings are like  celebrations of  a great human survival. The uncommon vibrancy and stimulance of each stroke of color, the passionate imagery of men or women are ageless and ethereal. That of a superior painter’s creative latitude so incessantly prolific which never appears a cliché or a repetitive chore. Living in current times Subrata recoils from the increasing materialism in our society as it is replete with disguise & beauty-masks .Sanjay Bhattacharya feels that any kind of material that women use to adorn their body makes them beautiful, for example I look at tribal ladies plucking flowers and leaves and weaving them into their hair, and then walking away sinuously. Chirayu Kumar Sinha’s ‘Chhamiya’  Sculpture head in the show indicates ladies who do not have good make-up sense, but they apply make-up materials without any taste and this beauty they feel because of that, creates some illusions within them & their walking style itself changes because now the illusion of beauty has taken root in their minds.

Srirupa Sen shapes teapots into forms in whom she sees signs of natural beauty: women, dancers, costumes that flow like liquid fire. ‘’This way, the fire in a way, nourishes this illusion. Life flickers into the teapot, bringing the dancers to life as steeped tea nourishes my soul as well, all of us dancing into life in the stillness of dawn.”

We are consciousness manifesting in physical form, shares Sculptress Sultana Khan. ‘’We are not our body and we are not our thoughts, we are pure energy that is here to experience life in a physical form. We have chosen to come to this planet in human form and we have chosen to take on the shape of what we call the human body. But that's not who we really are. This is where the illusion of reality comes into play.” The very impressive Serpentine like bronze by Dieter Kunz that seems both embedded in the stiletto as well as emerging from it , successfully conveys evil traits hidden behind the facade of today’s glamorous world. Some  significant works with minimal approach are the bronzes by Naga an emerging artist , which signify the need to protect the female child as there is immense pressure on Indian woman to produce a male child owing narrow mindset of some people & which also results in countless female foeticides in India.

The show ‘ Inner voices- Outer masks’ which is offering a holistic Art Experience ,comprises of over 125 artworks- Paintings, Reliefs , Serigraphs, Sculptures & 3D art spread in 5 lobbies at Gallery Artchill , inside the famous Heritage monument - Amber Fort  & is on view till 30^th May.

Compiled & Curated by
Sangeeta Juneja 2019

Web Link : www.artchill.com  |   Facebook :  Artchill Galleries  |  Instagram : Artchill Galleries
E-Mail : sangeetajuneja@hotmail.com