Art News: apexart NYC Open Call 2020-21

apexart NYC Open Call 2020-21

Accepting proposals: October 1-31, 2019, 11:59PM EST

apexart is accepting exhibition proposals for its NYC Open Call from October 1-31, 2019. Four winning proposals will become apexart exhibitions presented at apexart’s NYC space as part of its 2020-21 exhibition season. Curators, artists, writers, and creative individuals, regardless of experience level or location, are invited to submit a proposal online.

The submission process
Proposals should describe focused, idea-driven, original group exhibitions. No biographical information, CVs, links, or images will be accepted. Submissions cannot exceed 500 words and must be submitted in English. Jurors rate proposals based on their content and the organizer’s ability to communicate, rather than by familiar names or past accomplishments. See examples at https://apexart.org/opencallwinners.php

The selection process
Rather than convene a small panel to review hundreds of ideas, apexart’s crowd-sourced voting system allows hundreds of jurors to individually review proposals. An international jury composed of 300+ individuals from a wide variety of professional backgrounds—including students at over 10 international universities—will jury the proposals. Proposals are anonymous and randomized to make sure each submission receives the same consideration. apexart staff does not influence the results of the jury in any way.

The results
The four winning proposals will each receive an exhibition budget of $10,000 staff support, and be part of apexart’s 2020-2021 exhibition season. Working closely with the apexart team, curators will realize their original ideas into apexart exhibitions. Exhibition curators are expected, encouraged and challenged to work within the funding provided to transform their winning proposals into small, focused, noteworthy exhibitions. 

To submit an exhibition proposal, visit https://apexart.org/opencalls.html between October 1-31, 2019.

Sep 28: Updated: Three winning proposals to Four

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Art News: Of Life and Landscape

Of Life and Landscape by Shivani Dugar

Shivani Dugar’s recent suite of works, which developed in her city of residence New York, extends her abstract vocabulary, painting expansive vistas of life and its moments.

The immersive landscapes are derivatives from nature, as well as expanses of emotional and psychological terrains, expressed through color contrasts, translucent zones and vivid textures. Scale plays a pivotal role in Shivani’s works, an expression of the extent of the stream of consciousness and the immensity of the cosmic universe. The vertical format emphasizes  the distance between the earth and sky, while multi-panels build the narrative employing time as a motif, its fluency, inevitability, and the range of emotions and events it encapsulates with its passage. Size also contributes towards accentuating the disparity in scale between man and nature and natural forces.

Using ‘gestural’ lines, demarcating space and summarizing the elemental feeling of the subject, and allowing the painting to evolve organically, lie at the core of Shivani’s art practice. Fluidity of space and tonal gradations, along with abundant use of ‘light’ as a predominant motif play a vital role in creating the mood and atmosphere.

Shivani’s abstract expressionist discourse, relies on amorphous shapes and contours, while a gentle, subtle energy permeates her works. The unhurried calm reflected on her canvas, emanates from her working style - applying paint in layers, reducing the excess and reapplying - a process of building the essence and stripping the redundant. In her creative practice, the process occupies central posit and the end result is often accidental.

Excerpt from the catalogue text by Nalini Malaviya

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Timeless Narratives by Veteran Artists

Veterans’ Vision, as the name suggests, presents paintings by three senior artists from Bangalore. The collection featuring recent works by CS Krishna Setty, Chandranath Acharya and U Bhaskar Rao, encapsulates their unique visual vocabulary and individual voices, ranging from intimate and societal fantasies and apprehensions to vignettes from mythology and tradition. 

Krishna Setty’s metaphorical visuals interlace complex narratives around contemporary concerns. The forceful surrealistic imagery from his previous series has undergone transformation and depicts a perceptible shift towards abstraction. The hybrid creatures have receded and the recurring motifs and symbols have acquired ambiguous connotations, and are often hieroglyphic.

The mix-media works display significant textures and patterns, employed as an aesthetic device, and are remnants of the artist’s printmaking practice. The ambiguity of the hieroglyphs allows multiple readings into humanistic and existential angst, at the individual and a larger societal level. Fossilized remains or perhaps birthing grounds of indistinct forms, represent dreams or desires to form crucibles of compound visuals and narratives. The intense landscape generated, eerie and ethereal is disquieting, an infinite cauldron of life and consciousness with its associated anxieties.

Chandranath Acharya’s satirical commentary on the present political, social and psychological spectrum is situated at the threshold of fantasy and reality. His visual idiom combines a rare witticism with playfulness and surrealistic imagery. Royal figures, resplendent and clad in jewels and finery, indulge in ordinariness, a juxtaposition of opulence with the mundane, with undercurrents of satire and humour. 

Larger than life figures, surrounded by fantastical objects and creatures, form imposing portraits filled with pomposity, absurdity and grandeur. Decadence and mortality come together in a single frame with incongruous imagery, in incredibly sumptuous detail. Human conditions and emotions in all its exuberance, transience and intricacies, are portrayed adeptly with an underlying sense of mischief and tenderness. His extensive work in illustration and printmaking are clearly evident in the paintings.

Bhaskar Rao’s protagonists are primarily derived from mythology and visual and performing culture. These often narrate specific and recognizable instances and episodes, chronicling fragments of oral traditions and culture. Rooted in realism, with stylised and illustrative forms, vignettes from native landscapes, myths and mythology and traditions and rituals, etched in memory through time, are represented on the canvas.

The puppets form a popular leitmotif in his narration, a juxtaposition of the inanimate with the sentient and as an instrument of storytelling. Performance as an expression of human nature, culture and experience, and its associated connotations with social, philosophical and spiritual perspectives acts as a symbol of representation. 

The exhibition continues till September 22 at Fidelitus Art Gallery, Bangalore

All images courtesy the artists and gallery

Excerpted from the catalogue text by Nalini Malaviya

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Linear Perspective by Shirley Mathew

Perspectives on Urbanization

Shirley Mathew's recent series of paintings 'Linear Perspective' is in response to the changing landscape of Bangalore. Watching the rapid pace of urbanization and the receding green cover, she wonders about the collateral damage which is happening at the cost of development. 

Living in Bangalore, Shirley has watched how the city has transformed over the years – from the Garden city that it used to be, to where it is now. The paintings are an effort to highlight this concern and to draw attention to the transformation, and at the same time mobilize citizens towards positive action. It is also an ode to those green warriors who strive hard to save the remaining trees, and to those who actively take up greening initiatives.

Shirley’s works are based on abstract expression, deploying bold lines and varying the intensity of colours to demarcate the linear outlines of trees and foliage. She employs mixed media in her works to delineate perspectives and accentuate textures. The collection of black and white works highlight the fragile state of the environment, its negative connotations and to raise the question of survival of trees and of foliage in any urban space.

The artist elaborates, “I invite the viewer to imagine the lines of nature created on handmade paper along with mixed medium on paper and canvas. With intermingling tree lines, I have attempted to express the angst of full grown old trees being endangered, in the name of urban development yet shown rays of hope in brush strokes and composition, as a message for more awareness to save green in nature.”

Shirley hopes to raise awareness about this issue, which is critically placed now, and has far reaching impacts, ranging from climate change to availability of water. The collection of works is as much about painting a grim picture of reality as it is of optimism, affirming hope of immediate actions which can positively affect the future.

She offers an ode to the groups of concerned citizens from all walks of life who have dedicated their time and immense efforts to save existing trees and to those who have initiated planting of saplings. The linear perspective of trees alludes to the undeviating passage of time and its metamorphosis.

Linear Perspective, solo show by Shirley Mathew, from 3rd - 18th August 2019 at MKF Museum of Art, 55/1 Isha Villa, Lavelle Road, Bengaluru 560001

All images courtesy the artist

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Also read, 

• The Melancholy State of Happiness
• Interview: Kiran Nadar on #chalomuseum
• ART COLLECTION: Chitrakala Parishath, Bangalore
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• ART COLLECTION: NGMA, Bangalore
• 5 Reasons a Good Catalogue Text is Essential for Your Art 

Art News: Art in the City

An eclectic collection

The recently concluded art exhibition, curated by the well known Harish Kumar Sejekan, was held over the weekend at Phoneix Kessaku, Bangalore. It comprised of an eclectic collection, which included works that were part of a private collection with artists like Jamini Roy, Nandalal Bose, Abanindranath Tagore, and Ram Kumar whose works speak volumes about the rich history of Indian art. These were presented along with contemporary artists with an attempt to give equal importance and at the same time give contemporary and emerging artists their own space. 

Painting by Jamini Roy

Landscapes by Gurudas Shenoy and Milind Nayak, the two well known names in Karnataka were presented. The other artists included Kantharaj N, Ganesh Doddamani, Santosh CH who are unique in their representations of the mundane life. Bharat Thakur has made his name as one of the more well known painters of the past few years due to his adeptness in abstract as well as figurative work.

Sujata Sah Sejekan’s works lay emphasis on the human spiritual and subconscious minds and their experiences with nature. Sujit Mandya’s Bulls were strongly defined. Runa Biswas, Kadambari Mehta and Ajnaba Kiev were the other artists. Soumya Chakraborthy’s depiction of Aghoris was interesting. Harish Kumar Sejekan displayed his new series of art for the first time after a decade.

Painting by Harish Kumar Sejekan

The exhibition was presented at Phoenix Kessaku in association with Mayin Art and curator Harish Kumar Sejekan.

Based on the press release

All images courtesy Harish Kumar Sejekan

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The Melancholy State of Happiness

Frames of Existence

Rekha Rao’s recent series of paintings ‘The Melancholy State of Happiness’ gravitates towards abstraction - fields of colour delineated by bold lines, discrete pigments and dense textures. Conceptually, her works are anchored around her response to her immediate environment, adopting an observational approach, yet an active witness to the rapidly changing times. In this body of works, her ecological concerns predominate and represent urban issues and challenges, such as those afflicting local water bodies and other prevailing calamitous outcomes. A minimal palette paints an evocative landscape that is at times subdued and subtle, and at other moments, bold and dramatic.

Red Rain

Rekha’s artistic journey has been unusual and perhaps even extraordinary, a result of an amalgamation of coincidence, destiny and circumstances. Born in 1947, during the year that India gained independence, she grew up in an artistic and politically charged environment that shaped her art practice to a large extent. In a newly formed nation, artists grappled with notions of identity and with reconciling the past with current global phenomena and trends. Politics, society, tradition and geography were key to charting discourses in the creative fields and influenced Rekha as well.

As a child, from the age of four, Rekha sketched and painted alongside her father, who went through each and every work of hers with immense pride. Hebbar believed that a formal art education would hamper her individuality and creative expression and encouraged her to study Indian History. He continued to mentor her through discussions, debates and regular practice. Reminiscing about her father, Rekha writes, he once said, inspiration from his children, especially Rekha - ‘whose view ceaselessly refreshed my own artistic perspective’.

Black Bat

Rekha’s first art exhibition was held at Jehangir Art Gallery in 1969. The foreword to this show was written by Karl Khandalawala, an eminent lawyer and authority on Indian Miniature Paintings, who had also been a mentor to Amrita Sher-Gil. Rekha was married the same year and then travelled to Los Angeles where she lived for two years. Khandalawala was in fact, instrumental in introducing her to the art world in Los Angeles. The experience of living in the United States enriched her understanding of global art, and writings related to feminism, gender and social inequity deepened her world view. This enabled her to revisit, review and reposition her beliefs, theories and principles related to ‘home’ and art.

Childhood memories have often been represented as a kaleidoscope of colours on the canvas, and she elaborates, “Colour has the power to embody and invoke light within each painting.” As a child her father often said that a painting is not a literal exercise where the viewer has to be supplied with a long explanation. “But it is the story of the artist, and whose vocabulary comprises the shapes, surface, texture and colour on the canvas.” Rekha remains a storyteller, weaving colours, textures and motifs into a layered narrative.

Drying Clothes

In 2003, she moved to Bangalore and has lived here since. She continues to work actively for issues close to her heart and runs a non-governmental organization Mali for underprivileged women. She is also a Trustee of the K K Hebbar Art Foundation, which supports deserving artists and art projects. 

Excerpted from the catalogue ‘The Melancholy State of Happiness’, recent works by Rekha Rao, written by Nalini S Malaviya.

The exhibition continues till August 4 at Saanchi Art Gallery, Bangalore International Centre, Domlur, Bangalore

All images courtesy the artist

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For interviews, profiles, sponsored posts and to contribute articles, contact artsceneinfo@gmail.com

Also read, 

• Interview: Kiran Nadar on #chalomuseum 
• ART COLLECTION: Chitrakala Parishath, Bangalore
• ART COLLECTION: Jaganmohan Palace, Mysore
• ART COLLECTION: NGMA, Bangalore
• 5 Reasons a Good Catalogue Text is Essential for Your Art