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 30th May.
Compiled & Curated by
Sangeeta Juneja 2019
