DRAWING ON EXPERIENCE
Trained initially in drawing, 74-year-old Himmat Shah studied painting at the M.S. University of Baroda under Prof. N.S. Bendre in the late 50s. A rebel with a cause, in his youth he joined the art collective initiated by J. Swaminathan, then received a French Government scholarship and went to Paris to study etching at Atelier 17. There, he imbibed Western modernism through the influences of modern masters like Klee, Picasso and Giacometti. Working consistently for over five decades, Shah has explored materiality and texture…. Though better known as a sculptor, his exceptional drawings depicting complex contemporary visuals hint at the shape of things to come. Forty-four years after his first show was inaugurated by the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Farah Siddiqui of Studio Confluence will be presenting a selection of his sculptures and drawings in Mumbai.
At the Jehangir Nicholson Gallery, NCPA, Mumbai, from December 21 to 30

SAYING IT WITH GLASS
Charan Sharma has scaled unimaginable heights step by step with each of his 26 solo shows celebrating themes like pebbles, the dilapidated havelis of yore that housed Rajput nobility, puppets, toys and monks. Recently, his magnificent paintings on the Buddha, titled Enlightenment, virtually transformed the auditorium of the Jehangir Art Gallery into a monastery with the calm ambience they portrayed. In a collection titled Upasthiti, he eloquently creates a feeling of Being There by shifting the focus from the Master to his present-day followers. Complementing the paintings are the Buddha glass sculptures that the artist worked on with maestro Silvano Signoretto in Murano, Italy, recently.
At the Museum Art Gallery, Mumbai, from December 10 to 16.

OF FORM AND FIGURE
Painter, poet, sculptor, teacher, collector… the multi-faceted Jatin Das is difficult to pigeonhole. A dedicated teacher, the 66-year-old artist has been associated with Delhi’s College of Art and the National School of Drama for years. In Das’ own words, “Human predicament is my primary concern. I draw, paint and etch the human body without any narrative, devoid of placement of time. The figures in my work are doing their own thing.” Das’ collection of drawings, water colours, graphic prints and canvases, presented by Tarana Khubchandani in Mumbai, simply cannot be missed – especially as he will be showing in the city after 11 years.
At Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, from December 10 to 17, followed by shows in Baroda, Ahmedabad and Jaipur.

FLIGHTS OF IMAGINATION
Baroda-based Kakoli Sen is a dreamer and a storyteller – so it is fitting that her latest solo show is titled Reverie. Beginning her career with realistic paintings, she gradually turned towards abstract expressionism. Symbols like birds, flowers and roots are meaningfully incorporated into her misty imagery, which speaks softly of the migrants’ experience of being uprooted… until they find favourable soil to settle down and bloom where they are planted. As Jayaram Poduwal explains in the catalogue essay: “Kakoli’s works are the verses of regeneration picturing the imprisonment of spirit and the resurrection of life through spreading of the roots. The spirit of life blossoms from its destructive state, like the mythical phoenix bird. The bird flies freely in and out of the canvas carrying with it the message of freedom.”
At Gallery Beyond, Mumbai, till December 8.

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
Jiri Kobos was born in northern Bohemia, but developed an interest in the Orient. His travels in Europe, where he visited art galleries and museums, sparked off his interest in the arts… and he began to study the methods of the Japanese and Chinese masters, experimenting with water colours and ink. That was in the late 70s, when he first gained recognition for his talent in Florence and Munich. By 87, Kobos moved to Asia, where he made the transition from acrylics to oils… and stumbled upon his true artistic ambition – to master the form of abstract expressionism. Inspired by the oeuvre of painters like Frans Kline, W. de Kooning and Lee Krasner, as well as the teachings of the German artist Hans Hofmann, his canvases display a global influence… and are showcased in private collections in Japan, Indonesia, Dubai, Singapore, France, Italy, Germany, USA, India and South Africa. Pure, his recent body of work, has emerged from his stay in Mumbai.
At the Grand Hyatt, Mumbai, on December 2, and therafter at the Hyatt Regency.

LET’S GET DIGITAL
Rameshwar Broota, head of the art department at Delhi’s Triveni Kala Sangam for the past four decades, is a colossal figure on the contemporary Indian art stage. From the late 60s till date, the 66-year-old artist’s politically and socially motivated paintings have made powerful statements using a language drawn from the human body, apes, trees and even architectonic forms. Primarily rendered in oil on canvas by scraping off the surface of a dense body of paint, he has created bold and spontaneous forms… and subsequently even experimented with video films. This month, Vadehra Art Gallery presents his first solo digital photography show – consisting of prints that fuse the characteristics of photorealism with abstraction. Ideas attached to objects are turned on their head, questioned or even negated. For instance, one work captures the image of a metal pot with its outlets blocked by two human fingers, while another one depicts two human fingers surreally merging with one another to create an illusionary body. The fundamental difference in his ‘reverse’ paintings and this body of work is the spirit of playfulness that pervades the seriousness of his subject matter.
At Vadehra Art Gallery, Delhi, from December 6 to 15.