I am painting Nature and man again, but this time they have come together with a different balance. The human form is there in its primal purity

[Satish Gupta]

GALLERY GOER’S GUIDE

Zen and the Art of Satish Gupta

Satish Gupta’s followers probably loved the essentially Zen ambience – chattai, fragrant incense, soft chants – of Transformation, Gupta’s latest exhibition which marked a rather noticeable shift in the oeuvre of the New Delhi-based artist-sculptor-poet. The mixed media canvases and smaller drawings recently exhibited at Zazen, New Delhi and Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, were vintage Gupta, captivating and seductive in their polished perfection. The artist says: "A decade back I was painting the void, my work was minimal, the empty circle, almost white on white. I am painting Nature and man again, but this time they have come together with a different balance.

The human form is there in its primal purity. The frescoes of Ladakh and Bhutan are there, more subdued than the vibrant walls of Shekhawati. I am back to the pristine desert of Ladakh from the warm embrace of the Thar. The present works are about the transformation of the self, through the spiral of Time/Space." Shorn of extraneous explanations, the toned limbs and almond eyes of the man-woman pair that coiled their way sinuously through Gupta’s latest canvases were certainly alluring. On the surface they spoke about Maya, and, in passing, about a little more.

Spellbound: Shibu Natesan and Baiju Parthan

[Shibu Natesan]

In Memoriam – A Significant Man

Much has already been written in the wake of Baroda-based Bhupen Khakkar’s death. Artist nonpareil, Khakkar, 69, was a chartered accountant by profession who taught himself to paint and write in a distinctive idiom; his pictorial language, like his grammar, was unique. Artist David Hockney is cited amongst his early influences. Over time he arrived at a unique visual patois that drew as much from exalted Indian traditions, such as Pichwai and miniature painting, as it did from the squalor and colour of Indian street life.

Khakkar, who lived in middle class Gujarati localities throughout his life, possessed an uncommon ability to zero in on life’s fleeting moments. A huge body of work from the ’70s depicts tradesmen in typical and identifiable environments – watchsmiths, carpenters, masons, tea stall owners et al. His ordinary man, bearing a bouquet of plastic flowers is rendered with as much affection and aplomb, as a famous sitter like Salman Rushdie who Khakkar painted in the course of a private commission. Khakkar raised his characters from their pathetic settings with deft strokes of sparkling wit. Paintings of the 1980s, linked to his ‘coming out,’ speak of homosexuality in a forthright and tender vein. Important works such as Yayati and Two Men in Benaras are remarkable for their explicit details.

All this and more came up for view at the NGMA, Mumbai, when Usha Mirchandani of The Fine Art Resource, Mumbai put together a fabulous retrospective of the late painter’s work.

[Bhupen Khakkar]

A Celebration of Life

Concerned with the inroads of Western culture into Indian aesthetics and sensibilities, Nayanaa Kanodia has always focussed on societal changes around her. Her latest exhibition celebrated the very essence of living, by showing how modern life has become a rat race, inimical to the very essence of existence.

Kanodia recommended – through evocative visual images – that we should take life more leisurely, The theme was the celebration of life. Little things in life can give so much pleasure.

The mirth and satire in her work is not directed at any one individual or segment of society. Her 50-odd canvases in oils and water colours at her latest showing in Shridharani Art Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi, showed human figures caught in their different preoccupations.

Natural Progression

Shakti Maira quotes Henry David Thoreaux to speak of his latest journey that harks to new beginnings, exemplified by the humble seed, beej. Moving away from the framed image, in his showing at Jamaat, Mumbai, Maira uses the scroll to "enfold and unfold, hide, seek and reveal" his essentially non-representational, colour saturated reveries. We are told that this ad man turned artist’s new body of work must be experienced at several levels: the sensory, the emotional, thought, and spirit or consciousness. Not surprisingly, his images stem not from the annals of art history, but from his readings into Buddhist psychology and philosophy and from contemplation and meditation. They combine spirituality and potent shakti, if one may be allowed a pun in passing.

BOOKMARK

Call of the Real: What separates the Bengal idiom from the rest? The answer may well lie in the definitive strokes of its artists. A new publication by Modhurima Sinha tests this by homing in on the individual idioms of eleven respected artists, including Paritosh Sen, Sakti Burman, Suhas Roy, Sunil Das, Bikash Bhattacharjee and Paresh Maity.

Strictly for Sonar Bangla fans.

ART GOINGS-ON

Hammering On

Osian’s latest curated auction, fn_fn, figurative non-figurative narration, comprised an interesting selection of non-representational works by artists such as Ambadas and V S Gaitonde alongside representational work by artists of the ilk of Atul Dodiya and Manjit Bawa. The Gaitonde was estimated at a whopping $61,000-66,650. As for the final numbers that the auction mopped up, we have only Neville Tuli’s word for who really bought what, at the price they did. For, as everyone knows, there are bids. And then there are bids. Still, we have to hand it to the essential Tuli for the best catalogues in the country. Not to mention the list of who’s who that forms his advisory panel.

An overwhelming blizzard of well-wishers including artists, connoisseurs and friends, ensured that Chemould Art Gallery’s 40th anniversary celebrations, literally, stole the show last season. DiVERGE, curated by the formidable Geeta Kapur and Chaitanya Sambrani, offered the haute monde, and the hoi polloi, a chance to take a serious look at the span of Indian contemporary art of four decades. From abstraction to installation, from the greats to the getting there: Chemould has seen it all. For a closer reading into the life and times of India’s first family and their role in shaping Modern Indian art, there’s the newly released publication, The Perfect Frame: Stories and Photographs from the collection of Kekoo Gandhy.

[Senaka Senanayake]

Year’s end saw Apparao Art Galleries in fine fettle. They presented Sri Lankan artist Senaka Senanayake’s lush imagery in Mumbai. In case you were wondering, the exhibition’s title Shobhaa Neelum, had nothing to do with Shobhaa De, who remains a good friend of the internationally recognised artist. Senanayake’s canvases, rife with flora, fauna, Buddhist monks and birds of paradise hark to Tennyson’s The Lotus Eaters. Underneath the surface beauty though, lies the essence, seems to say the artist who refrains from spouting heavy-duty references to support his imagery.