Gallery Espace Brings Keep Drawing! In a Unique Installation of Myriad Lines
The participating artists in the exhibition include Amitava Das, Birendra Pani, Chinmoy Pramanik, Chintan Upadhyay, Dilip Chobisa, G R Iranna, George Martin, Gigi Scaria, Gopi Gajwani, Jeram Patel, Karl Antao, Komudi, M.Sashidharan, Mahula Ghosh, Manish Sharma, Manjunath Kamath, Mekhala Bahl, Mona Rai, Owais Hussain, Probir Gupta, Rajan M Krishnan, Reji Arackal, Sanjiv Khandekar, Sanjive Sonpimpare, Shreyas Karle, Sindhu R.V, Soumen Das, Tanmoy Samanta, Vasudevan Akkitam, Veer Munshi, Vibha Galhotra, Walter D’Souza, Yashwant Deshmukh, and Yogesh Rawal.
Says Renu Modi, Director, Gallery Espace: “Keep Drawing! has been conceptualized and designed by the prominent contemporary artist Chintan Upadhyay, known for shocking viewers out of their comfort zone. All works in this exhibition will be of an identical size of 5’ x 3’ and will be displayed in a manner such that one work will merge into the next… transforming the entire exhibition into an integrated installation and thus challenging the audience to decipher the exhibit from the exhibition.”
This is not the first time, however, that Gallery Espace brings to the viewers a stylishly designed show of drawings. Its tryst with this art form, which has now become an important part of any gallery’s repertoire, began way back in 1994 when Gallery Espace held its first highly successful drawings show of works by 80 artists curated by Prayag Shukla.
Subsequently, Espace has had a few significant exhibitions of drawings and works on paper, namely, In Conversation (2001 – sketchbooks and works on paper by 26 artists, curated by Gayatri Sinha), The Lyric Line (2005 – drawings by 18 senior contemporary Indian artists) and You Shall Remain Hidden… (2007 – Works on paper by Amitava from 1970 to 2007.
Placing in context the art of drawing, says curator and art critic, Sunil Mehra: “Drawings provide voyeuristic pleasure through which the artist stands revealed…. The sketch scribbled in here, then smudged over…. The omissions tell you as much about the artistic mind as the inclusions.” Likewise, artist Amitava Das further maintains that drawing is a “very intimate medium”. “In drawing,” he says, “there is no point of departure: I can start from a corner or the centre.” He finds drawing to be more adventurous, “like a journey to the unknown.” For him it is a method that allows him to develop a future language and as for curator Prayag Shukla, “drawing remains a constant preoccupation of many artists, throughout the world. And the role of the line has not been minimized in any way. I curated a drawings show for Espace in 1994 and fourteen years down the line, this still holds true.”
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