ART KONSULT'S BRINGS BARODA’S YOUNG GUNS IN CLASS OF 2008

New Delhi: Gallery ART KONSULT is very soon coming up with its a Classof 2008 - a group exhibition by Nine young artists from M.S. University Baroda who have completed their Masters in 2008, The young guns will be showcasing a new brand of experimental work in mixed media ranging from acrylic sheet & wood, sand and coloured beads to rubber doormats and mirrors.

Participating artists are Boshudhara Mukherjee, Sandip M. Pisalkar, Bhrigu Kr. Sharma, Parvin Khambal, Shreyas Karle, Jyotirmoy De, Swetha B.V., Bhavin Mistry and Hardik Kansara.

Says Sandip Pisalkar: “Whenever I see an object of historical reference, I wish to transform it through the use of technology. That means the practical context, and historical references are still there but I only try to manipulate the way of seeing that object. I would like to use the word REMIX (Past tense + Future tense = Present tense) to explain my art world. I like to listen to the old melodies, but remixed with the beat of this generation. I watch movies which are remakes of the old hits. Certainly we can’t forget the past glory but we realize we can’t extend it to our new generations within the same format. It demands adjustment and extends debates. Debate on what is relevant and what’s not. This is the whole essence of my work process. I look at objects of historical importance with an eye of interrogation.”

So, in one of his works titled Piau (Cooling), Sandip creates a mini-bar within the traditional format of a water pump!

A similar experimentation in form is being sought by Boshudhara Mukherjee who says that, “The canvas, for me, is more than just a surface to paint on. The canvas is cut and woven, sometimes more than once, to create the work. The most obvious layer is the technique and medium chosen. It also reflects my fascination with patterns and the various ways in which they can be created. It is not only the creation but also the recreation of the patterns along with distortions to create new, unexpected patterns that is important to me. This distortion is achieved by cutting the patterns and then weaving them back together to reconstruct them. No matter how precisely it is done, some amount of distortion always occurs. This relates my work to life and the distortions created by the challenges and problems that one faces. The works are thus also like portraits or masks that people wear. Faces one prepares to meet the faces one meets. They are the faces one ‘puts on’ or hides behind in an attempt to not totally reveal their true self. But no matter how hard one tries, the distortions continue to reveal the trials and travails of the inner self.”

This idea of the hidden and the revealed is further extended to how the artist displays her work. The works are hung away from the walls with their backs also showing. The works are created frontally, hence the conscious. The back on the other hand develops automatically, the unconscious. One cannot judge the work based on its outward appearances. The intricate, delicate nature of the work seems to make the audience forget that its process of creation is one that would be normally considered destructive i.e. cutting. Destruction hence becomes a necessary part of creation. Again behind the apparent fragility of the work, is hidden its great strength to endure.

It’s the same attempt at creating a distorted reality that prompts Hardik Kansara into creating mixed media works related to illusions. He makes a larger than life-size comb in teak wood. The teeth of the comb are made of cubical wooden logs on which a pair of eyes have been created to create the illusionary playful image of the eyes. In yet another work, Hardik uses perforated rubber door mats with round mirrors placed in each hole. Says the artist: “I want the viewer to get an experience of a sudden illusion which creates an element of surprise when he sees his own reflection in the mirror”.

On the other hand, Bhavin Mistry, another young artist hailing from fine Arts Faculty, MSU, Baroda consciously avoids human presence in his works, a "no-man's landscapes" in his words. Some of his works also comment upon the overpowering of manmade technology.

“I never try to capture the beauty of landscapes in my paintings instead I use it just as an element to show depth. Tensed colour scheme and balanced composition got combined to produce a work of simple, quiet ambience that ignores almost deliberately any human presence, which effects the viewer can sometimes be perturbing. These lonely landscapes reflect a deeply introvert, detached perspective on reality. Relaxed tonal rhythms and use of limited range of colours reveal a painter who wishes simply to capture the essence of objects and scenes. Objects isolated from their physical context are imbibed with an enigmatic aura.

I have always remained free from the ideologies and have used all the freedom that is granted by this institute. Baroda has seen a number of narrative and figurative painters and also very well known for conceptual artists, but the quest to find something beyond and the immediate kept me going on. It is however a conscious effort to avoid any human presence in my works, a no-mans landscapes. I am also unconsciously commenting upon the way manmade technology had overpowered the human clan almost to the extent of paralyzing it.”

Gallery Espace hosts Amit Ambalal's Recent works

Gallery Espace Presents Veteran Artist Amit Ambalal’s Recent Works

Inspired by Bali

New Delhi: Gallery Espace presents “Recent works by Amit Ambalal”; a solo exhibition of more than twenty new works (paintings in oil on canvas & sculptures in bronze) by Ahmedabad-based veteran artist Amit Ambalal from July 21, 2008 to August 12, 2008 at Gallery Espace, Level 0-1, 16, Community Centre, New Friends Colony. The exhibition will be accompanied by a well-documented book on the artist’s stylistic oeuvre by critic and art historian, Gayatri Sinha.

Says Ms. Renu Modi, Director, Gallery Espace: “Ambalal’s work may be seen within a critical phase of Indian modernity, his adaptations and resistance, as he seeks to create a language that is both recognizable and intensely personal.”

Born in Ahmedabad in 1943, Amit Ambalal qualified in Arts, Commerce and Law to become a businessman before taking up painting full time in 1979. So taken in was he by his childhood dream of becoming a painter that he sold off his family-owned business (textile mill) in 1977 to pursue this passion. Trained under veteran artist and teacher Chhaganlal Jadhav, Amit’s engagement with the arts extends to a wide ground of historical research, documentation and collection and his particular interest in the Nathdwara School of Painting. He has to his credit a book on the subject, Krishna as Shrinathji - Rajasthani Paintings from Nathdwara, published by Mapin in 1987, followed in 1989 by an exhibition of Nathdwara paintings from his collection. His work can basically be divided into two categories. One has a contemporary approach to tradition via the popular religious traditions. And the other is the historical Rajasthani Nathdwara devotional paintings he has been creating for the last two decades now. Part of his work also revolves around human drama.

Amit Ambalal occupies a singular position as a satirist-painter who develops parody, caricature and mimicry into visual tropes. He usually works from the familiar and the domestic outwards, tentatively inhabiting unfamiliar worlds. In the present paintings, we may participate in his elliptical style of autobiographical narrative with Amit, his wife Raksha and their dog Dusky and the monkey god Hanuman – figures from known and imagined spaces, who confront change like brave if somewhat, bewildered travelers. The outcome is an alchemic mix of ideas that fosters a sense of dislocation.

The accompanying publication seeks to locate Amit Ambalal within a particular framework: his own roots in a mercantile family with strong traditions of devotion, his seminal research into the visually opulent 19^th century school of Krishna as Shrinathji and the reappearance of this twinned strain through his critique of figures of authority and faith. It covers nearly four decades of a practice marked by keen observation that is enriched through references to signs and visual coda, colloquial references and aphorisms.

A prosperous society embedded in a destitute society is thus oft the focus of his work. His portraits of India are simple and a direct means of him coming to terms with the horror he sees around him. He has a unique ability of perceiving quirks and flaws in human behavior and making them part of his great pictorial scheme on canvas. It’s often been noticed in his canvases that where his faces, body and gestures are devices of his irony, it's the color, design and texture that gives his paintings the light and easy mood.

Hypocrisy doesn't bother him, he prefers to splash it on canvas and mock the world thus. Says he, "I don't decide what to paint before hand, the initial idea may be from a newspaper photograph I have seen in the morning or an antique sculpture. Then as I am painting something starts to grow inside that canvas and that takes on the final form on the canvas.”

Be it historical or contemporary, his work is paired with the critical, irreverent humorist creating a satirical representation of the everyday and the divine, filled with eccentric human and animal protagonists. Works titled ‘Painted Tigers Don’t Bite’, ‘V Fall Victory’, ‘Nat-Raj’, ‘Kaun Hai’, ‘Barking Dogs Do Bite’, ‘Jacuzzi In Jurassic Park’ & ‘Pee-Cow’ all showcase a no-nonsense double-take on a nonsensical universe populated by the beautifully contorted and attenuated bodies of his idiosyncratic protagonists, human and otherwise.

The works thus have a directness of appeal which gives it an assertive quality. His practice of figuration seems to enjoy a rare freedom perhaps not available to those with the weight of academic training on their shoulders. Yet it is not out of naiveté that the artist draws in his characteristic manner. Rather, it is a carefully devised figuration that he makes use of; the deceptive looseness of line in his work is perhaps matched only by the tautness of his terse commentary.

A large part of Amit’s work is in watercolors- a medium he terms as ‘friendly – guiding you where to stop’. However, this current exhibition will showcase his recent works in the oil medium- a part of a series influenced by his recent trips to South East Asia- particularly Bali where he was invited for an artist residency. To quote the artist, “The exotic island of Bali has always intrigued me with its underlying likeness with our own visual culture. The legends of Mahabharata and Ramayana are brought to life in the pictorial images that we see in Far East as also the Ajanta and Ellora Caves of India. What is indeed fascinating about the Far East Culture is the harmonious relationship that man shares with nature resonating his acceptance to all its forms, be it gods or demons. Vivid images of graceful women in temple processions and idiosyncratic protagonists, human and otherwise, thus find way on to my picture plane.”

Amit Ambalal held the first solo exhibition of his work at the Hutheesing Visual Arts Center in Ahmedabad in 1980, and has had numerous solo shows through the length and breadth of the country, since. His work has also been represented in several group exhibitions in India, including the Sixth Triennial - India, 1986, and the Bharat Bhavan Biennale, 1990; and abroad in Amsterdam, Harvard and Perth, amongst others. Winner of the Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship, Amit’s works feature prominently in noteworthy public and private collections like the National Gallery of Modern Art, Delhi, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum, London, amongst others. The artist lives and works in Ahmedabad.