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Divergent Directions

Published: Volume 13, Issue 1, January - February, 2005

Spectator he may be - but consummate artist that he is, Akbar Padamsee's work persuades the most passive audience into active participation. He coaxes us to pierce the soul by looking into the eyes of his heads…and to celebrate the form of the human body by feasting on his photographs.

A multitude of mixed media creations were on view this festive season…. Maria Louis examines the varied offerings.

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Akbar Padamsee

Pundole Art Gallery

At 76, this stalwart of Contemporary Indian art continues to steer his very individualistic course along life's learning curves. Having observed, absorbed, experimented and translated his vision through mediums as varied as oil on canvas, Chinese ink-and-brush, animation films, print-making, metal sculpture and computer graphics, Akbar Padamsee began 2004 with a retrospective and ended it with an exhibition of recent drawings, watercolours and photographs. Fascinated by the unique character invested in each face, he has rendered heads in graphite, ink and watercolour. Unafraid to acknowledge that his role is merely that of a spectator when he photographs his "nude, not naked" models, he insists that in photography his subjects imprint themselves on the surface of the paper. Since he has used photography as a "means to an end" through years of drawing and painting figures, heads and nudes, it was interesting to see both cause and effect side by side for the first time. Spectator he may be - but consummate artist that he is, Padamsee's work persuades the most passive audience into active participation. He coaxes us to celebrate the form of the human body by feasting on his photographs.

Kahini Arte-Merchant

Jehangir Art Gallery

Here is one artist who displays commendable maturity with each consecutive exhibition. From the pretty self-portraits she indulged in during her formative years, Kahini Arte-Merchant has come a long way indeed! Like she announced through her last solo show held in December 2001, there is a

continuing Metamorphosis in her persona. Transience, her latest series of 21 paintings done in acrylic on canvas, marked the culmination of years of studying human nature and filtering her thoughts, emotions and vision in her work. Using the vocabulary of contemporary imagery drawn from issues of cloning, dream sequences and the realm of magic, she communicated the transient nature of time, seasons and life itself. Using images of aircraft (Transience I and II) and winged creatures (A Dream Revisited I and Metaphysical Journeys II) to convey her experience of fleeting moments, she threw questions at the viewer while seeking answers to the complexities of modern life. Layering colour upon flat colour in meditative mode, she seemed to be in search of a spiritual balance even as her paintings struck a visual balance.

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The Fine Art of Design

There is just a fine line between art and design. The Art Show held at Tranceforme, the design studio at Mahalakshmi, brought together four renowned artists. Anupama Kundoo, an award-winning architect who works out of Kolam (an architectural unit in Auroville), created a collection of granite pieces that retain their boulder-like forms while being transformed into usable furniture. Each one a sculpture by itself, the range covered coffee-tables, dining-tables, baithaks and urlis. Master ceramicist, Jyotsna Bhatt's vases, platters and animal forms are all set to become collector's items for their forms and glazes. Art jeweller, Usha Shah, designed handmade jewellery, with natural stones and antique glass beads. And artist, Sheetal Gattani, explored the square in her unusual sculptural lights that displayed her mastery over textures.

The way trends are moving, if you're looking for art, you should be checking whether you're sitting or sleeping on it, storing your belongings in it or eating off it!

The Fine Art of Photography

The line between photography and art is already so blurred, that photographs often share wall space with paintings. Blurred Borders, a Fine Art Photography exhibition held in association with Hacienda Gallery, celebrated this changing face of art. Linked by the common thread of an immigrant background that finds home in Australia, it included two painters and seven photographers among the group of Sydney-based student artists from the University of New South Wales. Their work displayed a multicultural aspect, as the artists hail from varied cultural backgrounds. Printing, photography, digital imagery and other new media were used to describe and depict the topography, life, culture and strife in the new homeland. Their stories of finding and making a new home were universal in appeal and provided a glimpse of the migrants' predicament of adoption and yearning. Indeed, this exhibition redefined notions of a fixed border - both culturally and aesthetically.

For the rest of the article, pick up VERVE’s January-February, 2005 issue

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