8 Sept 2022

Art News: Art from Heart 2.0

Avijit Dutta

“Art from Heart 2.0”, a charity group art exhibition



More than 30 artists from all over the country are joining hands for the second series of the charity group art exhibition, “Art from Heart 2.0”, is being organized by Mamta Nath, Founder & Director, The Lexicon Art and Artist Swati Pasari from Kolkata at The Lexicon Art, Connaught Place from Sep 3rd till Oct 7th, 2022.

“The exhibition aims at representing the diverse and rich cultural heritage of India while raising funds to support the multiple community service activities being carried across India by Round Table India. This is the second in series, the first being held online in April 2020 to raise funds for covid victims and their families. Its heartening to witness the art community coming together for such noble initiatives, we are looking forward to continuing with this annual event to be able to touch more lives”, says Mamta Nath.

Some of the most renowned names in the art world are part of this exhibition, viz., Avijit Dutta, Gurudas Shenoy, Madhuri Bhaduri, Niren Sengupta, Seema Kohli, Swati Pasari, Venkat Bothsa and Vinita Karim.

Vinita Karim
“We are delighted to associate with The Lexican Art once again for raising funds for our various social causes. While in 2020 funds were diverted to help Covid victims, this year, we plan to divert them to our long-term Project, “Freedom through Education”. Through this project, we have educated approximately 9 million underprivileged children throughout India and have built one classroom a day, every day, during the last decade”, says Manish Lakhotia, National President, Round Table India.


Till Oct 7th, 2022, 11 am – 7 pm at The Lexicon Art, M 12, Block M, Connaught Place, New Delhi








Excerpt from the Press Release



2 Mar 2022

Cut Pieces by KP Reji at The Guild

The Guild presents “Cut Pieces”, a much awaited solo exhibition of recent works by Baroda based artist K. P. Reji at The Guild, Alibaug. 


K. P. Reji at The Guild, Art Scene India
The show is the first presentation in the silver jubilee year of the gallery. Reji’s works are known for their witty take on the state machinery and its multiple modes of ordering of lives of people. In this recent body of works he takes a new direction in exploring this. The meticulously constructed canvases offer a newer language, and furthermore, newer narratives in his repertoire. “K.P. Reji’s oeuvre, marked by its frontal narrative overtures and enigmatic subterranean, political sites, propels us to think about the need to define beauty in a new ontological setting. This drive is evident in his move, on the one hand, towards an allegorical mode of narratology, and a counter-move to suspend the narratorial through the ‘decoratively-real’ exteriors and interiors, on the other. In an intriguing manner, many of his works present themselves to us as allegories on practices, and works of art; as an artistic rumination on representational dilemmas of narrative idioms. 
K. P. Reji at The Guild, Art Scene India
These representational dilemmas stem from an artistic contemplation and reasoning regarding the nature of the political in the discursive universe of what can be broadly called aesthetical practices. Reji’s artistic propositions often remind us, in a Freudian analytical way, that the experience of beauty is bound up with, or is a form of mourning; it is a life-affirming act even though what one is dealing with is the most abominable. His works can be read perhaps as a pharmakon, which ex-poses the melancholies of our time; or better put, in-stances inertias that cloud our thinking and action. In a way, it presences the element of the violence of the sublime—at times, through the fracturing and fragmenting (and tearing) of form, materiality, proportion, and even composition, for the sake of the aesthetic encounter. The constant reinvention of unforeseen potentials of the affective fields of percepts and language Enables this body of work by Reji to enact the redistribution of the sensible, and thereby, open up newer possibilities of the political and the aesthetical. 

In the overall schema of this exhibition, both the phenomenology and politics of perception are evoked through the spectral presence of multiple acts of blinding. It seems that the coming together of these works proposes that only in blinding perception can the claims of colour and line be restituted, and with them, finally, the authority of the fragile and harassed human body.” – Excerpt from “Beauty as Pharmakon”, essay by Dr. Santhosh S

The exhibition continues till April 5, 2022

17 Feb 2022

Art News: Consortium by Fidelitus Gallery, Bangalore

Art exhibition celebrates senior art faculty from Bengaluru

Fidelitus Gallery kicks off 2022 with “Consortium - Art Preceptors of Bengaluru Art Institutions”, a unique art exhibition that draws attention to and features the on-going practice of active senior faculty members from 3 prominent Art Institutions in Bengaluru, namely, Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath College of Fine Arts, Kalamandir School of Arts and Ken School of Arts.

Consortium by Fidelitus Gallery, Bangalore, Art Scene India, www.fidelitusgallery.com
Sculpture by Vishal Kavatekar
These institutions are decades old and markers of history in the state that have shaped the art scene in the region. Several of their alumni have gone on to become prominent names in the art industry in the country. Fidelitus Gallery through this exhibition acknowledges and celebrates the contribution of these fine art institutes and their extraordinary educators. The exhibition features 10 eminent artists and teachers - A M Prakash, Babu Jattakar, Gopal Kammar, Nagappa Pradhani, Pratibha T S, Sridhar Murthy, T S Baoni, Vishal Kavatekar, Mallappa S Halli and Nirmala Kumari and presents their paintings and sculptures. The show offers an array of fine art in diverse styles, subjects and themes, and materials and media, for the discerning art connoisseurs.

The initiative is also aligned with the Gallery’s “Heritage Wing” project that facilitates educational programs with respect to Museum and Gallery Studies.

Consortium by Fidelitus Gallery, Bangalore, Art Scene India, www.fidelitusgallery.com
Painting by Shridhar Murthy

Fidelitus Gallery aims to create an inclusive platform for the arts - both performing arts and visual arts, along with curated art educational pogrammes for the community.

The gallery is committed towards creating world class art exhibitions by curating hybrid transformative spaces by following standards of the international committee of exhibitions. It also hopes to make a difference in the arts sector through sustained efforts, all of which will gradually create lasting changes in techniques and processes of exhibiting art in the city. 

The collection from “Consortium” will be accessible in a hybrid form - both physically and virtually on the gallery website www.fidelitusgallery.com. The gallery believes in giving back to society and follows the motto of Art For A Cause, whereby, part of the sale proceeds will contribute towards Shilpa Foundation, which works on providing a healthy environment and quality education for the underprivileged in Karnataka.

Consortium by Fidelitus Gallery, Bangalore, Art Scene India, www.fidelitusgallery.comThe 10 days exhibition will be formally inaugurated on Saturday, 19th February, 2022 at 6:00 pm. It will be inaugurated at the Fidelitus Gallery on 19th in the presence of Shri Alok Kumar, IPS, ADGP-KSRP, Shri Ashok Kheny Ex MLA Bidar South, MD NICE, Dr. Pramila Lochan- Art Historian and Critic, Shri Lahari Velu, and Shri Achuth Gowda, MD & Founder Fidelitus Corp Pvt Ltd. Artists and art connoisseurs are welcome to join the inaugural program.


Consortium by Fidelitus Gallery, Bangalore, Art Scene India, www.fidelitusgallery.comVisit the show here www.fidelitusgallery.com and at the gallery address given below.

The exhibition, “Consortium - Art Preceptors of Bengaluru Art Institutions”, is open to everyone from 19th to 27th February, 2022.

Fidelitus Gallery, Brigade Software Park, No. 42, Ground Floor, B Block, 27th Cross, BSK 2nd Stage, 

Bangalore - 560070

Email: info@fidelitusgallery.com PH: +91 80 68073700


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19 Jan 2022

apexart International Open Call 2022-23

apexart International Open Call 2021 winning exhibition Voicing the Silence in Moscow, Russian Federation, Art Scene India
apexart International Open Call 2021 winning exhibition Voicing the Silence in Moscow, Russian Federation 

apexart International Open Call 2022-23 


Accepting proposals: February 1 - March 1, 2022 

apexart will accept proposals for its International Open Call from February 1 - March 1, 2022. Four winning proposals will become apexart exhibitions presented in their selected locations around the world as part of our 2022-23 exhibition season. Curators, artists, writers, and creative individuals, regardless of location or past experience, are invited to submit a proposal online. 

The submission process 

Proposals of up to 500 words should describe focused, idea-driven, original group exhibitions, and the country and city in which they are to take place. No biographical information, CVs, links, or images will be accepted, and proposals must be submitted in English. Jurors rate anonymous submissions based on the idea only. See examples of winning proposals here

The selection process 

Rather than convene a panel of a few art world people to review hundreds of ideas, apexart’s crowd-sourced voting system invites hundreds of international jurors to review proposals on their own schedule. The crowd-sourced jury is composed of more than 400 individuals from a wide variety of professional backgrounds and international locations—including students from 20 participating university classes—who will vote on 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 up to $11,000; have an exhibition brochure printed and mailed to over six thousand international recipients; advertising in major and local outlets; and will be part of apexart’s 2022-2023 exhibition season. Working closely with the apexart team, curators will realize their original ideas into apexart exhibitions. Exhibition curators are challenged, encouraged, and required 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.php between February 1 and March 1, 2022.


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8 Dec 2021

Tattvamasi by Artist Mohan Shingne

Spurts of Enigma: Nikhil Purohit writes on the art practice of Mohan Shingne 


An artist with formalist fervor operates both as an agent and a vessel for creation. Contemporary Indian art today is a mix-bag of several ideas from world art merged with indigenous aesthetic blends. It liberates an artist like Mohan Shingne to cross the roads with ideas of modernist abstraction and impulsive sculptural responses to a medley of found objects imparting meanings to resulting objects.

Untitled painting by Mohan Shingne, Art Scene India

A nuanced rendition through self-experienced perspective is the notion one ought to look for the works of Shingne rather than novelty. The artist has a dedicated hybrid practice. Firstly, of making sculptures with a conscious thematic of collaging shapes and found objects. Secondly, of paintings worked out as a process of self-exploration like an ardent devotee revealing the inner workings of a contemplative mind. He holds an intimate attachment to his role as an art educator besides following sculpting and painting as primary modes of expression.

With a humble upbringing in a family of goldsmiths, Mohan’s small and life size sculptures carry the craftsmanship and flair for detailing with a remarkable finesse. Poetry for him becomes a source for insinuating his feelings towards the inanimate world around that catches his attention. Words seem to be a storeroom to accumulate his notes for later visual conversions as idioms. It allows to gain a sense of Zen like feeling to learn how objects- mostly rustic, aged, and redundant become one with his psyche and finally at an immersive moment the object is released into a sculpture or flat surface. With a share of hardships in his early life the phase gifted him with a connect toward wordless conversations with things around. A link that has lent subtlety to his paintings and harmony to his 3D objects.

All this process hints at romance with formalism, yet Shingne finds gaps to escape rigidity in practice and breakthrough from monotony by experimenting with the found objects, clubbing them together. He happens to follow a formula of an uncanny juxtaposition where “Form + Form = Form, Form - Form=Form”. Perhaps the equation is an inert one where the principal element always stays. A philosophical take where the utilitarian thought in the object is discounted to abate a metaphor with mysticism.
 
Sculpture by Mohan Shingne, Art Scene India

The set of new achromatic works made during the nationwide COVID-19 pandemic lockdown period instills mixed feelings of emptiness, seclusion, loneliness, remorsefulness, silence, hope, and perseverance. The general theme of the series in dark shades with subtle textural notes has rectangular divisions annotated with few rhythmic curves breaking the grid formation. This releases the built-in tension formed after continuously watching the work. These works almost remind the ravishing paintings of veteran artist Jeram Patel, though the method of covering the space takes a different visual course. The underlying organic forms are nothing but triggers to melody.

One sculptural collage arouses satire and amuses us. The cylinder works were made by him before the onset of second wave where one could barely imagine how the situation could turn to be grave medically. Hailing from the goldsmith’s family these cans are part of his families’ occupational supplies. Mohan made use of these empty cans to revise their identity by introducing commonplace objects. The juxtaposition can only be admired by the viewer for the ease of mix-match where the two unrelated objects of a can and those of a buttermilk churner, a bowl, and an oil lamp respectively are bonded together. The experimenter within the artist allows spurts of delight and ecstasy.

Faithfully abiding by the tenets of formalism Mohan’s works continue to entice enigma.


Tattvamasi by Mohan Shingne, a Solo Show of Paintings and Sculpture continues till 10th December 2021 at Shridharani Art Gallery, New Delhi