When Bodhi Art displayed their gallery collection, Landscape, in Mumbai last month, it drew attention to the creative outpourings that emerge when an artist is in awe of the magnitude, splendour and beauty of nature. Landscapes, once used merely as backdrops in frescoes and portraits or to depict the region’s topography and architecture, have only recently been elevated to ‘high art’. Bodhi’s collection showcased this genre in its various facets with the dynamic abstractions of Ram Kumar, the vibrant colours and simplified symbolic forms of J. Swaminathan, the realistic renditions of Nataraj Sharma and the minimalist approach of Zarina Hashmi.

Even before that show ended, Art Alive Gallery in Delhi unveiled An Enchanting Journey – the 50th solo show of Paresh Maity that pays tribute to God’s Own Country. In a series that is as much about self-discovery as it is narrative, the artist captures some of the most endearing and refreshing vignettes of Kerala. The soulfulness of mood and memory, the interplay of warm hues and vibrant shades, and the interlacing of figurative, representative and stylised vocabularies that mark the celebrated artist’s visual language portray the unquestionable beauty of this land in all its vitality.

And now, Gallery Threshold presents a landmark show to mark the opening of their new 2,500 square foot twin-level art gallery in Lado Sarai, New Delhi. Gallery director Tunty Chauhan has been regularly hosting artists’ retreats worldwide and Mapping Memories: Painted Travelogues of Burma, Bali, Greece and China is an outcome of those odysseys undertaken between May 2005 and November 2006. Reputed artists like Rameshwar Broota, Atul and Anju Dodiya and Anjolie Ela Menon, among others, have immortalised the journeys that took them across the shimmering blue of the Aegean Sea in Greece, the vast monochrome of the Gobi desert in China, the verdant beauty of Bali and the gentle countryside of Burma dotted with a thousand pagodas.

What’s unique is that the itineraries for each expedition were carefully drawn up to ensure meaningful contact and exploration of the artistic heritage – the history of each place and its people. For instance, the China tour skirted the dazzling 21st century city lights of Beijing and Shanghai as well as the tried-and-tested touristy paths and transported the artists to an unheard-of Islamic Kashgar on the Silk Route with its blue-tiled Id Kah Grand Mosque affirming ancient Central Asian linkages of the region, the Bezeklik Caves replete with Buddhist murals at Dunhuang, the rugged Yangguan Pass, the Terracotta Warriors at Xian with the result looking magical.

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