Exploring sagas of the unsung by Gourishankar Soni | 9th Jan - 20th Jan 2022

Juneja Art Gallery showcases latest artworks by emerging artist Gourishankar Soni

This is 139th sponsored show by Juneja Art Gallery ( Bais Godown location ) since it was established in 1994 as the 1st private & professional Art Gallery. The Gallery showcases multi media art by not only Eminent Indian artists, but also promotes the young &  emerging artists of Brilliance. 

The Exhibition was inaugurated by Mr. Jagdish Chandra Katil, CMD of FIRST INDIA NEWS

Show is on view daily till 30th Jan 2022, and will travel to Le Meridien Jaipur in March 2022.

Gourishankar Soni's work, rooted in the artist's childhood, reveals certain intriguing facets of time, memory and the traditional Rajasthani way of life. The artist has always been fascinated and impressed by the rich cultural heritage of Rajasthan. His paintings, often teeming with small figures in dhoti and angarkha, revelling in folk music or other activities with their backdrop awash in bright colors, are resonant with Rajasthani traditions, festivities and day-to-day affairs. The works reflect the way that common folk have been living their lives—with the simplest possible means, yet with dignity and certain grace. All this is perhaps natural, as Gourishankar belongs to Rajasthan and his preoccupation with the beautiful state, which he interprets in a unique manner, is manifest in his art. He interprets the visuals our culture has offered and its present state of affairs that he has seen and felt. The artist celebrates its beauty, joy, and melancholy, with a certain freshness and playful approach which nonetheless asks for serious, sensitive viewing.

Ironically from the land of maharajas, Soni's turbaned 'toilers' are not kings but commoners—sadhus, singers, puppeteers, labourers—men and women, who, unlike royals, have lives that revolve around mundane concerns and moments of leisure that synchronize into collective, community affairs. However in his paintings, each figure seems to have its own autobiography, its own statement. Some of them are retreating into the crevices on the mehrabs of the forts and havelis they built and themselves were almost forgotten. Some gyrating, crawling, wedging themselves through the narrow opening, and some reaching out to each other amid the grind of battles for survival. We can still find their indelible footprint in both life and art.

In his art, Soni has tried to capture their resilience, hope, fears and joys while offering them a more significant social status using his own easily flowing narratives. One can go on weaving many stories with the help of visual narratives he offers. To find the figures climbing a door in one of his works brings a smile to our face as we become one in their adventure and also begin to celebrate, as humans, the passion for creating something bigger than ourselves. Soni has meticulously placed circles and triangles in his images and has laid them neatly, one after another, to have heightened interactions of souls between them.

His works are thus a treat to the eyes and our contemplative faculties.  The way he encapsulated the small Lilliputian figures in time, is wondrous and conveys a certain hint of satire. This is particularly noticeable in his painting titled “Social Distance” which reminds us of the plight of the migrants trapped in contexts where social distancing may not be possible even during a pandemic. The use of Egyptian hieroglyphs, symbols such as clocks and antique curios might as well be suggestive of the transience and triviality of human lives. It also raises the question of whether our cultural traditions and social mores are losing their relevance like many lost empires of the distant past. So, in these works, there are histories, but the idea is to turn them into mythical, mystical realms, and make them imaginatively more alive and enchanting. Thus whatever he offers is layered with exquisite references, in terms of specific signs and symbols. In one of his paintings titled “Mystical Life”, we see a sealed tomb of a mummy with carved inscriptions that serve as clues to the rest of the happenings in the picture space.

Gourishankar knows the beauty of the lines, which makes his works more interesting and communicative. The way he sketches the figures, the kites and other objects, all come to us in a focused manner, to establish a 'dialogue'. In fact, this stimulated dialogue makes his paintings worth pondering many times over. Similarly, his use of the circumference of circles, to place some figures and objects there, symbolically is also eye-catching. His bright reds and blues are so very meaningfully expressive and other hues too speak poignantly.

Soni's skills in delineating images, his treatment of textures, his sensuous handling of forms are all allegorically tuned to the extent of being melodious in their tone and tenor. His work, while bearing echoes of the tradition of miniature, champions a more contemporary approach in telling timeless tales of mysticism, language and culture.

 

Prayag Shukla
Poet & Art Critic, New Delhi, 2021 

Unfettered Forces | 6th Feb. - 6th March 2021 | Amber Fort, Jaipur

 Unfettered Forces      

Limitless….Profound…Unrestrained Forces

Art, since prehistoric times, has influenced man. Infact art has been the earliest sign of human imagination & creativity even before the languages evolved. Today’s artists 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 carry 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.Nature offers them pictorial and aesthetic beauty and inspires them with images and ideas. These artists never loose focus as they glide over their energy forces, deftly using elements of abstraction, distortion and simplification to create an alternative world and life where the physical and mystical co-inhabit. It takes courage and tenacity as artists explore an addictive idiom of continuous stimulation-by-image & correspondence between real-world imperatives & inner-world fantasies: reflecting in some ways the conditions of artistic practices within the broader domain of expressive culture.

Unfettered Forces is 138th show by Artchill (Since 1994), it 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. The abysmal depth of their artistic vision is abundantly visible in this show as they created with a great deal of passion, intensity and vigor, with layers upon layers mounted with immense dedication and dexterity. Introspective self is matched by an abandon and courage, it may well have stemmed from a subconscious impulse. After all , you require quite a spiritual effort to effect an exact  transformation  of the raw life experience into palpable art .

Spread in 8 lobbies of Gallery Artchill inside the famous Heritage monument -  The Amber Fort, this show offers a holistic Art Experience , it comprises of over 90 artworks by 20 artists - Paintings, Reliefs , Serigraphs & 3D art  by Contemporary Indian artists.

Gallery Artchill, West wing, Amber Fort, Jaipur.
On view till 6th March, Compiled & Curated by  Sangeeta Juneja .

Juneja Art Gallery established in 1994 has been sponsoring exclusive art shows for last 26 years to showcase not only eminent artists works , but has also strongly supported the deserving  & emerging young talent of our country , under its brand name Artchill, which is also its online portal. Artchill has so far sponsored 138 art shows .

Some of the strongest & serious compositions in this show are works by P.N. CHOYAL.  One of the living legends of the Contemporary Art World, and a close Contemporary of the early Indian Modernists of the 1940’s PN Choyal was against any wholesale borrowing from his illustrious forerunners. Unlike the first generation Modernists, he never rejected the essentially lyrical content in the romantic version of the past, nor did he break down the female figure in angry haste and bitterness. 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;A very committed painter, His human figures are symbols of pain and agony. His figures are uneasy spectators to the conflicts & strife around them. They are projections of the dehumanized society suffering unbearable dignity and shame.

Arpana Caur affiliates to this prominent school of time explorers. ‘I am obsessed with the phenomenon of time ‘ she said once, and her pictures are witness to this obsession in many ways. The motifs in her paintings from classic art- Scissors are  a repeated symbol and remind us of the Fates, antique goddesses of destiny, who cut the thread of life when the time is due. Traffic lights are phase of order and timing. Everywhere you’ll find the river of time, form which powerful plants emerge or twisted dead trunks and branches submerge. A mediating yogi, oblivious of time and space, stands on one foot and ponders ascetically over spiritual eons.

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.

Niren Sen Gupta - His experimentation with abstract forms continued well into the eighties. But the change in temperament gives a glimpse into the twisting road that life can take. Complex emotions clearly gave way to an underlying feeling of bliss , contentment and a sense of serenity  has stayed on in his work till present day.He has executed impressive works on Moksha where he has portrayed monks  in saffron robes, symbolizing their spirit of sacrifice & compassion. He feels true search for spirituality uplifts one & connects us with  our inner self. In “ Princess ” series, he drew inspiration from the strength of the Indian Woman, her sacrificing spirit and her devotion to family. He depicted her as a princess – closely in touch with nature, and often with a lotus as the symbol of purity.

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 from abstraction to figurative portrayals.

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.

Abbas Batliwala has an uncanny talent to combine complexity & simplicity to great visual effect in his amazing compositions.  This incredibly creative man with superb craftsmanship draws on everyday experiences for inspiration which he infuses with a dry, witty sense of urban humour, mixing folk and kitsch into his art. The art of Abbas not only contains satire but also humour. It combines well formulated images with literary puns & sharp wit with grace & candour. His themes merge the rural with urban, masterly disciplined through & bringing to the fore his refined draughtsmanship, which till date remains to the core of his art. He has turned ubiquitous subjects into hot selling art !

Ashok Hazra’s canvasses are all pieces of his life's experiences sewn together in a string to form a garland of memories. One series follows another – Fantasy, Ma, Reminiscence, Clown, Krishna, Devi and now the Flute Player. The lush green Meadows, shady banana groves, the fragrance of wild grass combined with the rich smell of rain soaked mother earth still tingles his dreams. Amidst all this beauty, peace and tranquility the sweet melody of the flute beckons him to his carefree days spent in the countryside.

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. Images of tigers and of romanticized couples, reoccur continually in his work, into serigraphs of multiple colored registrations creating surfaces of incredible richness and extravagance. Shahid in all of his subtleties of wisdom is telling us to view Art through the innocent eyes of the child we once were. His paintings with their multiple surface layerings act in defusing the sometimes explicitly charged renditions of flirtations as in ‘time for love’ with the obvious placement of the heart shaped time piece, a discreet twist of a nipple and the cat’s tail being held suggestively. The oddities in delineation of human as well as animal forms are result of child like fantasy. Shahid has a tendency to draw - conducive theatrical assimilations. 

Subrata Gangopadhyay’s paintings are like  celebrations of  a great human survival. He is enchanted 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 secrets.The uncommon vibrancy and stimulance of his colorful strokes, 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 .

There is a reflection and frequent presence of 'self ' in all the artworks by Anjani Reddy. If some works explore the intricacies of treasured experiences, the others unravel her day to day exposure and connections with her immediate surroundings and people. The basic core and concept of her work revolves around myriad facets of life, mostly positive and uplifting. The mixed essence of peace and tranquility that defines the basic nature of the artist. Amongst rosy setting and calm harmony, the young women in the works rejoice and reminisce the golden moments and days that have overshadowed all other anecdotes and experiences of their lives. In the perfect harmony of bright and soft, prominent and diffusing colors, the 'Nayika' relaxes and reigns thoroughly.

Shail Choyal is a painter & printmaker known for a distinctive miniature style of his own. He infuses his works in the narrative idiom and also juxtaposes the allegorical with the real. Exploiting the inherent aesthetic motifs and the multi tier division of space of Rajasthani traditional painting, he has evolved a nostalgic art with an utmost modern sensibility. Vibrant colors and surreal settings add mystery to his paintings creating ethereal atmosphere & fantasy.‘City of Udaipur, with its glorious ancient Rajput architecture, lakes, hills, gardens and robust people with brilliant colors have always been my prime concern. Rigid angular form in horizontal and vertical lines punctuated with curvilinear motifs of doors, windows, still bluer lakes, domes and turrets all fill me with strong sense of nostalgia. For years, I exploited the visual references of my lovely city to project my own personal world that has been mystical and real as well’ says Shail.

Asit Kumar Patnaik has been working on the Relations series for quite some time now. It will be interesting, therefore, to explore the kind of selves articulated into the batch of works on the Relations series. To begin with, it is informed by a great deal of individuation. Light, brightness and diversity appear to be a major leitmotif in this series. The pleasantly aggressive brightness of yellow, red, ochre and the bold, often charged postures, is an unabashed celebration of energy, youth and freedom. There is a spring in the steps of the figures; they enjoy every possibility they imagine and weigh with consideration. This ode to life however is no uncomplicated tribute to raw passion but careful sifting away of excess baggage after long and hard meditations.

Madan Meena pays particular attention to Rajasthan’s socio-cultural issues. His actual artistic production is characterized by refined, almost minimal & classy works. Expressing the complex labyrinth of emotions in simple forms is something Madan has learned from the traditional art form of the Meena tribe, which always has been his source of inspiration. Probably the abstraction and expression of complex ideas in simple forms of folk art and their range are the source for Madan's inclination towards abstraction. His works always have a deep and close association with nature, now this association is reaching to new heights of abstraction. The elements of nature in his previous works have now reached to such an amalgamation with the sight that creates deeper sense of magnificence. It has tranquility, optimism and lull, which holds you spellbound & mesmerized. 

Dipika Hazra lays bare the heart-warming simplicity of Rajasthan, the open attitudes of its humanity rooted in the attributes of her land. Dipika’s palette is diversified and vivid. Her choice of reds, yellows and blacks betokens the love of blazing colours with which the people of Rajasthan make up for the vast and drab attributes of their land. The artist depicts remarkable states of serenity & a striking evidence of great strength and skill in organising forms and colours and creating the effect of enchantment and fantasy. The simplicity and spontaneity with which she handles mundane themes is itself a visual treat. She creates a spell binding impact. Untainted by bumptious modernism, Dipika’s works present a lyrical vision of nature.

The innocent and flawless adolescents in the works by AnandPanchal enchant by their exquisite grace, they are an indispensable part of the temple periphery. Born in the family of the ‘pandits’ and the temple care takers, such children imbibe into themselves the elements of the holy surroundings and adapt to them completely. There is an essence of careless beauty and spiritual strength that makes these young girls and boys glow as if illuminated from a source of light concealed deep inside them. He attends to his little angels with affinity, love and thoughtfulness, allowing each of them to glisten in angelic radiance like fresh dew drops on tender leaves. The inclusion of forms such as paper boats, cows, floral clusters and musical instruments add to the metaphorical and allegorical aspects of the works.

Kiran Murdia’s paintings convey her own language of paint and brush subtly, suggestive of her fleeting moods, which she express as proudly by breaking the space of canvas. Her subject matter is simple and she expresses her aesthetic belief in artistic creativity with miniature impact. Use of pure and bright shades of colors, rhythmic & straight lines reflects excitement, movement, grace and charm of life. Her semi-abstract compositions are rich in colors producing dramatic effects in rhythmic movement. The Udaipur landscape still remains a source of reverie, but the centrifugal points in her new works are now accentuated by an abstract delineation.”She respects her pictorial space and honors the moment of inspiration completely.

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. The feeling of serenity, love, romance, satisfaction, compassion and passion are the soul of his works.

             

Ganga Singh's latest paintings offer us a glimpse into inner landscapes of another world. In these dreamlike scenes, cohabited by animals and people, strange interactions occur that question the traditional logic and expectations of viewing. The bold abundance of vivid colour in his new paintings call for viewers delectation of beautiful patterns, which is his signature pictorial element. His depictions are always stylized from his own imagination, memory and dreams alike. ‘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.’ Imagination is the most enjoyable faculty man has. It is God’s gift to man. Everything, whether it is living man or animal or non-living: all are equal and have emotions like us. They also act & react the same way as humans. Animals, trees and other animated forms in his work have human faces.

Srinavasa Chari says my paintings are my ‘experiences’. The shifts in my thought process are certainly evident from the way I express myself in my work. In the formative years of my career I applied human forms to narrate various experiences. Therefore, they were characters, playing roles I issued them to play. But gradually they got internalized within me and now they reflect my soul in the form of bodies. The human body is now depicted as the spirit of life instead of banal relationships. In fact, it is a vehicle for the traveling spirit.

Parallel World solo exhibition by Ganga Singh | 9th Nov. - 20th Nov. 2020 | Juneja Art Gallery, Jaipur

136th Show sponsored by Artchill at JUNEJA ART GALLERY .

Ganga Singh's latest paintings offer us a glimpse into inner landscapes of another world. In these dreamlike scenes, cohabited by animals and people, strange interactions occur that question the traditional logic and expectations of viewing. The bold abundance of vivid color in his new paintings call for viewers delectation of beautiful patterns, which is his signature pictorial element. His depictions are always stylized from his own imagination, memory and dreams alike.

Art, since prehistoric times, has influenced man. Art can speak where words fail. Nature offers us pictorial and aesthetic beauty as images and ideas. Artist Ganga Singh adds to it -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.’ ‘Imagination is the most enjoyable faculty man has. It is God’s gift to man. I believe this imagination provokes him to create and make life worthwhile. Most people ignore their imaginative thoughts. They are too busy in meeting their day to day requirements. I watch my thoughts carefully. They are continuous, without any gap. They take you away from misery….they make you happy ’ says the artist. Most of the time one feels one’s thoughts are wild dreams, un-reasonable, foolish, as they are absurd. But this is the beauty of thoughts. They recreate combinations, take new form, give birth to new dimensions, and create parallel reality. They balance our existence. Ganga uses forms associated with our day to day life to tell stories through his paintings. Philosophy, he feels is equally important. Everything, whether it is living man or animal or non-living: all are equal and have emotions like us. They also act & react the same way as humans. Animals, trees and other animated forms in his work have human faces. ‘I give animal like faces to human beings to show their animal instinct, which dominates their behavior in today`s world.. I have made an effort to portray the deep and hidden emotions that we experience. The purity of colors and forms are very evident which depicts the relationship of body and soul. ‘ In his artistic pursuit he gives importance to his creative expression along with the material and mode he employs. While each material has its limitation in application, he strives to get the maximum out of it, at times even deviating from set procedures and use methods that are not in time with orthodox approach.

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'Trashscapes' 
Photo Art by Kishan Meena

From 23rd to 30th Sept. 2020

Found objects from trash have for generations sparked the imagination of the artist. If nothing else then at least the idea of it. This is always reinforced with a title. There is also, some degree of alteration, modification by the artist, to create his own touch, values and political thought. This method is now being critically discussed, as any object taken from its real ‘purpose’ including ‘ready-mades’, constitutes modification of the object because it changes our perception of the utility and purpose of the same. This is exactly what Kishan Meena’s work tries to do.

Artists from India & round the world  have dealt with the subject of trash, waste water and other such general daily refuse that man creates, over and over again, in abundance and without much thought. Trash objects have been picked up and relocated in art galleries for a few decades.  One of the main objectives of the artist who picks out objects from trash heaps is to rearrange them to make a profound statement and give a new meaning.

Kishan Meena’s work is unique because he has not gone through heaps of trash and rearranged the objects as his eye has remained on flowing waste water in a small polluted river round the corner from where he lives. He has photographed flowing water with toxic waste and debris, stopping it just for the moment when it turns into an abstract visual. Unlike a trash artist he has not picked up anything, nor re arranged it to suit his vision, he has simply shown ‘what it is’. The only manipulation he has done is to mirror the images, and with that, like a magic wand has turned them it into intricate abstract images, almost unrecognizable from what they actually are. Even if critically examined, if not told what the images are about it is difficult to imagine the original source of them.

What is interesting about Kishan Meena’s ‘art’ is that he has taken a flow of extremely toxic waste water and frozen it in time. Unlike many, Meena has not titled any works and leaves them to the imagination of the viewer. One of the images, which has dry stems of grass sticking out, reminds one that nothing lives in this water. With his own humble eye he has made a political statement about life around his own living area showing from such minute detail where the world is going if we do not become more responsible. All the images are photographs, and disturbingly beautiful.

Written by Navroze Contractor

(photographer/ writer)

 

Venue : Juneja Art Gallery, C- 34 & 36, Road No.1, 22 Godown, Jaipur- 06

Ph. : 0141 4034964 ,    Web : www.artchill.com

 

Inscrutable Layers 25th Jan - 7th Feb 2020 | Gallery Artchill Amber Fort, Jaipur

Contemporary readers, viewers and interlocutors are manifestly more willing than their counterparts thirty years ago to appreciate works that resist tightly defined analytical categories. Films with ambiguous characters, books with unsettled protagonists and plays with unstable trajectory have over the last decades attracted greater popular acceptance. Indeed, there has been a correspondence between greater understanding of the inescapability of ethical ambivalence and popular accommodation of grey as a tolerable idea. It would not be an overstatement anymore to claim that these days grey, or analogous conceptual horizons such as ambivalence or un-equivocation is no longer considered a negative attribute.

Artchill is delighted to showcase & unravel the abysmal depths of these Inscrutable Layers of latest works by these well known Indian artists- Shahid Parwez, Vijender Sharma, Ashish Shringi &  Asit Kumar Patnaik.

SHAHID  PARVEZ  -  Shahid has a unique style all of his own which has very little influence from others and makes his work very recognizably his. In much the same way that life is given to us in multiple layers, in his new works Shahid gives us paintings with increasingly complex and interlinked levels. His works present us with a series of simple overt images. However underlying that first level is a series of much more complex, intricate and interesting covert images and levels in multiple colored registrations creating surfaces of incredible richness and extravagance.

ASHISH SHRINGI -  Ashish's body of works in the last two decades has remained inspired by the Tantrik symbolism and traditional art forms of Rajasthan, thus 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. The freshness of his colors and textures creates vivid hues. His compositions are highly complex, multidimensional and inter-weaved with multiple perspectives. The feeling of serenity, love, romance, satisfaction, compassion and passion are the soul of his works. The originality of his ideas and style holds our mind to reflect on meaning of life. His works are celebration of human thoughts and emotions. To conclude one may say that the identity and purity of his works will always showcase the ethos of this land.

ASIT KUMAR PATNAIK - An equivocation that is particularly alluring about Asit Patnaik’s men and women is the tension between the wide variety in their juxtaposition and their unchanging physical features. In their microcosmic expansiveness, they can alternatively convey impressions of joy, sorrow, love, indifference, familiarity as well as inscrutability. They relive potentialities, they entail pensive pasts, they call up imagined futures and they even interrogate their own selves and suppositions. Patnaik has been working on the Relations series for quite some time now. It will be interesting, therefore, to explore the kind of selves articulated into the batch of works on the Relations series. 

VIJENDER  SHARMA - His mind-boggling works speak and walk the viewer into its story, speaking of the inner and outer worlds. It could be satirical, esoteric, psychological, innocent, spiritual, dreamy or surrealistic...many such deeper emotions that we could relate or connect with. A contemporary artist, yet realistic in his own way, his paintings speak volumes of his own search in life as also his understanding of the unknown. Vijender seems to be a melancholic modernist who creates works that fool the eye and have an added edge of surreal dimensions. His paintings, many of them are not muted in color, but they are bold and powerful and always carrying a story to narrate. The textures that he adds to each canvas echo the trials and tribulations of observations he ponders over in the everyday idiom of lifestyles and living.

Text compiled by Sangeeta Juneja from various articles written by Anirban Bandyopadhyay , Madan Meena , Uma Nair , Malcolm Grant, Geoffrey Mason & Shail Choyal.

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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

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