Preview: January, 2012 – February, 2012

No Beginning No End: An Exhibition of Mixed Media Works on Paper by Kavita Jaiswal

Artkonsult, New Delhi

December 18, 2011 to January 10, 2012

In the exhibition No Beginning No End Kavita combines acrylic, permanent Ink, handmade paper, charcoal, and conte to create abstract compositions on paper. There is interplay and interaction of line, tone, texture and space to create compositions which are free of any recognisable imagery, yet appeal to the eye and the mind of the viewer to the complex nature of each image that reaches out towards an inner truth - an intuitive understanding of the nature of reality. Kavita Jaiswal has been working for over 30 years, and is a recipient of a number of State and National level awards for her works. She is also a recipient of the National fellowship from the Ministry of culture Govt of India, and the Charles Wallace India Trust Award from The British Council for an Artists Residency at the Edinburgh Printmakers Scotland.

Fragile curated by Malani Gulrajani and Vida Heydari

1X1 Gallery, Dubai

December 20, 2011 to January 12, 2012

The show Fragile which is curated by Malani Gulrajani and Vida Heydari includes works by

Alireza Fani,  Kaif Ghaznavi,   Mohsen Sadeghian, Parul Thacker, Pooja Iranna, Prajakta Palav Aher, Samira Nowparast and Shivani Agarwal. As the name suggests the works portray the delicacy as well as the vulnerability of the world in recent context. The show is like a collective effort of the artists to shake the society from its comfortable slumber. The show raises a question if we are responsible for the degeneration of the society. But still at the end of the show the viewers feel that there is still some hope for us to give life another chance. That the things may get change for better, provided we try.

Expressions

The Viewing Room, Colaba Mumbai

December 22, 2011 to January 7, 2012

The show Expressions includes works by Malavika Mandal Andrews, Sukanraj Chouhan and Lomror Kana.

There works exhibited are of diverse mediums like paint, wood and enamel. The artists have used their creative imagination to explore the versatility of the mediums.

Some works of Malavika Mandal Andrews presents nature in a different aspect, while Sukanraj Chouhan’s works reflect the vivacity of humanity and works Lomror Kana has spiritual connotations.

The exhibition gives an opportunity to the viewers to see some unique works in a varied range of mediums.

Leather Puppets from Andhra Pradesh

Arts of the Earth

December 23, 2011 to January 13, 2012

The art of leather puppetry is a part of the Indian folk tradition.  Leather puppets, in varied forms, are prevalent in many parts of Asia.  This is an ancient art and has a long past which reached its peak during the 2nd to 10th century AD.

Arts of the Earth is exhibiting about 27 Leather Puppets from Andhra Pradesh

These puppets are known as Bommalata or Tholu Bommai. These puppets are also known locally as Kilubommalu. They are multi-coloured and richly decorated and also have fine holes.  When placed behind a screen and light is projected from behind, it produces a magical effect.  Their depictions are mainly from the Ramayana, Mahabharata and mythological stories and the figures are generally of Rama, Sita, Laxmana, Hanuman, Kausalya, Krishna, Arjuna, Ravana, Durga, Ganesha, Joker, Tiger, etc.

The tradition of leather puppets in India spreads across the states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa and Goa.

A Dense Web of Balances

Aakriti Art Gallery, Kolkata

January 12 to January 31, 2012

Aakriti Art Gallery will present the works of 20 contemporary sculptors including artists like Satish Gujral, Akhil Chandra Das, Niranjan Pradhan, Manik Talukdar, Shankar Ghosh and others. Each sculptor and their practice and method in this show carries the essence of their language, life, success and how their work helped to unfurl the epoch and understanding of a practice- about their own experience and understanding that is profound and timeless.

The works of these 20 sculptors scrutinize the living reality, which is diverse, but direct and different position of art confront the viewer in an overwhelming and dizzying fashion-exciting that it contrasts the work of major sculptors with widely disparate styles. The beauty and ideas of these works are extreme promises of post independent nation.

Soul Frames- A Photo Art Exhibition by CAMERAunLIMITED

Arpana Caur Academy of Fine Arts & literature, New Delhi

January 13 to January 19, 2012

Without an observer, there is no distance because thought defines direction and creates space. Between the seer and the seen exist countless fragments with unexposed possibilities of pictorial communication. A photographer steps-in as a self-appointed interpreter and practices cultivated abandonment to seize the specks and traces of these fragments and make them timeless narratives. Photographs are a strikingly punctual response to a self-contained, momentary situation that later tends to generate new meanings and significance. The interpreters/artists participating in this photography exhibition are: Ahmed Firoz, Ambika Sethi, Hirak Kanti Dutta, Kabeer Lal, Rajesh Ramakrishnan, Satyen Badhwar and Yatinder Kumar. The experimental ethos of these seven autonomous, free-wheeling artists, play with the objecthood and ephemera of our daily lives and how inherent meanings get muted when creativity takes over. Episodes of escapes and resistances in our existential culture are confronted, seized and sealed into an idyllic frame which seeks liberation by engaging the viewer into observation and renegotiation. Meticulously chosen and embraced subjects, throb with a distinct emotional intensity thus providing a common undercurrent or an intangible binding force that connects and provides a coherent visualization of a series of frames together. This exhibition features a spectrum of soulful comprehensions clicked and edited using a variety of techniques.

Shimmering Scarlet

Art Heritage Gallery, New Delhi

January 14, 2012

The Art Heritage will present ceramic works by B R Pandit and his son Abhay Pandit.  B R Pandit  displays his mastery by reducing the oxygen content in the kiln to coax the copper glaze to produce red; over the years he has broadened his collection of reds to move from muted matt to now a  shimmering scarlet. His daubs of green and pink add interest to some of the rich red skins of his pots.

B R Pandit will also present a green crystalline double- walled glaze bowl. Its softly shimmering surface reveals an exquisite matrix of crystals.

Abhay Pandit is inspired by the Mumbai sea, stones, and myriad images he observes of people and places. In this show he presents works using a variety of new techniques.

His works appear cracked and parched, yet sometime charged with life. Lines stretch across the surface of pots making complex web. Another pot/platter appears like an aerial view of the Earth itself, its spread of water and land. And yet another bears different colours on both sides; one side is brown and the other side is brushed with light blue and green.

Hidden Geographies solo show by Sharmistha Ray

Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai

January 18 to February 18, 2012

Hidden Geographies, Sharmistha Ray’s exhibition of abstract paintings, explores spiritual and metaphysical conditions using Mumbai city as a site for poetical excavation. Ray brings out those pervasive symbols and signifiers that have been extracted through her experience, assuming canonical ideals of beauty and the sublime to manifest a painterly idiom for the intense sensations that Mumbai evokes. Her visual language mixes an unusual colour palette and sensitive gestural style with built-up layers of paint that is candid, poignant and instinctive. For Ray, colour is genuine emotion and painterly gesture is the application of it onto canvas. The resulting meta-landscapes of Hidden Geographies are suspended in time between mythos and reality, between abstraction and it’s opposite, exposing an intimate and charged topography of the subconscious mind.