Art Scene India: November 2018

5 Nov 2018

Art Bengaluru 2018 - A Celebration of Contemporary Art

Art Bengaluru 2018 - Ongoing at UB City

The 2018 edition of Art Bengaluru brings together 17 Indian artists across 24 exhibits to UB City, the centrally located mall in Bangalore. This year, one can see photography, mixed media artworks, oil paintings, acrylics, pen and ink drawings, sculptures (from wood, steel and paper) and video projects, all arranged aesthetically adopting a cohesive approach, and there are some very interesting works to be seen at the mall. Since, it's a public space, anyone can walk in to view the art. The exhibition scores high in terms of accessibility, display and lighting. With several outreach programmes the footfall is expected to be high.

Art Bengaluru 2018 at UB City, Public Art, Photograph courtesy Prestige group, Art Scene India

Saju Kunhun

Art Bengaluru 2018 at UB City, Prestige Group, Public Art, Photographs Art Scene India

Balan Nambiar

The display has been put together exceedingly well and it begins at the foyer with Balan Nambiar's large stainless steel sculptures and continues inside the mall with his enamel works and a large painting by Gurudas Shenoy (a 20 ft multipanel work on the ground floor, which forms a stunning focal point). His natural and urban semi-abstract canvases form an extensive collection at Sublime Galleria on the 8th floor as well.

Vipta Kapadia and Kavita Jaiswal are among other artists that are displayed on the ground level and their abstracts - quiet and meditative by the former and heavily textured and layered by the latter are captivating. The large linear hillscapes in pen and ink on paper from 1986 by D Venkatapathy, the senior founder member of the Cholamandal Artist Village are intricately detailed in black and white.

Gurudas Shenoy

Parvathi Nayar

The centrally located exhibits of the 2nd floor showcase works by Parvathi Nayar, Romicon Revola, Ashu Gupta and Saju Kunhan. Parvathi’s graphite drawings explore water in its simultaneous ubiquity and scarcity, portrayed through the entire spectrum of perspective - from bird’s eye to microscopic. Romicon video works offer an interesting narrative, where one invites the viewer to contemplate and meditate on a single drop of water and the other engages with the phenomenon of the urban sprawl. She says, "The urban sprawl is like the mythical hydra: a creature that grows two new heads every time one of its heads is cut off."

Romicon Revola

Bothysathavur , S Ravi Shankar & Ganesh Selvaraj play with symmetry with paper and wood, 'these exhibits are tethered by strict geometrical forms employed by the artists; from the perspective-altering curves and lines of Yuvan’s work on plywood, to Ravi Shankar’s architectural laser-cut paper sculpture that transform in different angles of light, and Ganesh’s intense assemblages of magazine paper on board'.

On the first floor, photography and photo media by Devangana Kumar and Rohaan Sulaiman are exhibited. Devangana recreates postcards from mid-nineteenth century that are based on Indian servants employed by British and which presents them as commodified subjects. The artist's large format digital recreations attempts to reinstate dignity and identity and humanise them. "Rohaan’s documentation of Naga tribes and wildlife explore themes of migration, adaptation to rapidly evolving habitats and preservation of tradition," according to Abhishek Naidu, curator.

Pallon Daruwala

Pallon’s exhibit features a selection of works from the new edition of his Vertical Horizon series, which aptly titled, capture a diverse series of subjects and settings that are as thought provoking and disorienting as they play with the 'normal' and turn around perspectives.

With curated art walks, the festival also aims to contribute to art education among both children and adults. Art Bengaluru 2018 has partnered with several schools (Parikrma Centre of Learning, Srishti Institute of Art, Design & Technology and Dr. Beltran’s Animation School, to name a few) to take their students through curated walks to help them better understand and appreciate the arts.

Curated art walk with exchange students from Garden University, Spain

Ms. Uzma Irfan - Festival Director, Art Bengaluru & Director, Prestige Group

The featured artists include Balan Nambiar, Gurudas Shenoy, Kavita Jaiswal, Vipta Kapadia, Chandan Bhowmick, D Venkatapathy, Yuvan Bothysathavur, S Ravi Shankar, Devangana Kumar, Rohaan Sulaiman, Parvathi Nayar, Romicon Revola, Ashu Gupta, Ashish Dubey and Pallon Daruwala.

Ms. Uzma Irfan is the Festival Director, Art Bengaluru & Director, Prestige Group

More details on Art Bengaluru 2018 here http://www.artbengaluru.in/

Art Bengaluru at UB City, Vittal Mallya Road, 11am onwards is on till November 18

Edit: Updated 02 – 18 November 2018

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2 Nov 2018

Art News: Recounting Memories by Gurudas Shenoy in Bangalore

Recounting Memories by Gurudas Shenoy

at Sublime Art Galleria in Bangalore

Gurudas Shenoy’s urban spaces recount narratives constructed around places, their architecture and history to form visual chronicles. The irregular façades of structural forms conceal stories of life and living. An array of emotions, personal and collective sagas and memories lie embedded within the walls of settlements. Archives of human existence entrenched in every brick and piece of glass, the inanimate captures the living breath within its folds.

The evolution of the current series of cityscapes can be traced to his travels across India and Europe. A significant point in his artistic journey, the European visual and cultural environment opened up entirely new vistas for him. It triggered rigorous experimentations on canvas, and an expansiveness in his imagination and thought, resulting in a fresh vocabulary. Paris, Amsterdam and Prague amongst other cities, contributed to a refined aesthetic in terms of colours, lines, form, light and textures, leading him to explore the city in its vitality, sheer energy and its resplendence. His fascination with buildings, old and new, their historicity, and their silent role as witnesses to time and its transformation, their inhabitants and their lives with all its variations, became a muse.

Apart from the cityscapes, Shenoy’s newer works occupy a transitory space, where the structures from an urban skyline gently dissolve their linearity and are suggestive of memories of land and the surrounding environment. Undulating terrains, open skies and hints of topographical details speckle the surface and the works become calmer and unencumbered in their exploration. Perhaps, meditative too, reflecting Shenoy’s state of mind and a personal sense of serenity that he now embraces. The experimentations with colours and textures intensify, and he continues to gravitate further towards abstraction. He revisits landscapes - from places he has travelled to, and represents them as snapshots in time and space. The colours are vivid with strong and often dramatic brushstrokes that capture the essence of the memory – of land, its contours and colours, the play of light and the prevalent mood.

Nalini S Malaviya

Art Critic, Bangalore

Excerpt from the catalog essay Recounting Memories

All images are courtesy the artist

Recounting Memories by Gurudas Shenoy at Sublime Art Galleria in Bangalore previews on 2nd Nov and continues till 28th Nov, 2018.

5 Nov 2018

Art Bengaluru 2018 - A Celebration of Contemporary Art

2 Nov 2018

Art News: Recounting Memories by Gurudas Shenoy in Bangalore

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