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Indian contemporary artists: Jitish Kallat

Monday, September 21st, 2009 | Author: pankti

jitish-kallat As we are trying to cover emerging artists who remain unknown hitherto, the next name in the series is Jitish Kallat. He has earned a name for himself in the highly competitive and choosy world of Indian art. The way, he has emerged on the horizon of Indian art is truly praiseworthy. His prime plank is autobiographical mode that he uses in his works. Many critics may find it obsessive but yet there is a certain appeal to the way he uses self image in his paintings as the main protagonist. To quote him, “My art is more like a researcher’s project who uses quotes rather than an essay, with each painting necessitating a bibliography” clearly outlines his philosophy towards his work. He explores several aspects of his life in his works. His favorite themes include his personal relationships, death, time and relation with ancestry.

Jitish Kallat also excels in his method of painting. His method is quite economical and he prefers to focus on abstract form of paintings. His narrative is quite strong and he often takes help of visual materials that appeal to his senses. Images tend to float in his art works and it’s almost like a complex web work. The mysterious part of his painting emerges from abstract form where viewers have to solve the puzzle. Everyone is free to make his own interpretation and it is u to the viewer to decode the theme of the art work. His paintings are dual in nature and comprehending it as a single theme seems to be a tough ask.

While taking care of titles he uses texts that incorporate element of humor in his paintings. His art works are truly a treat to watch and understanding the theme is even more interesting.

Category: Indian art journey, Indian artists, Indian Contemporary Art | Tags: Indian Art, indian contemporary artists, Jitish Kallat | Leave a Comment

Devajyoti Ray

Sunday, September 20th, 2009 | Author: mritunjay

Devajyoti Ray is a shining star in the galaxy of Indian art world. Born in 1974 in Kolkata, he initially studied economics from legendary Presidency College. Later on, he did his Masters from another prestigious university Jawahar Lal Nehru (JNU) University, New Delhi. He is a fish of different kettle. As his birth year suggests, he is quite young and loves to experiment. He is also perceived as an offbeat artist. He has dabbled in pseudo-realism theme and remember, he is one of those rare Indian artists who love to experiment in pseudo-realism theme. Devjyoti often includes regular scenes from everyday life and that is a fascinating way to put across your expression. You cannot really find a pattern in his art works. But yes, you can get lost in the maze of appealing visuals and colors and yet you will be able to comprehend the meaning. Often touted as ‘rising new star’ of Indian art world, he has made rapid strides in recent time.

Talking about pseudo-realism, it is basically a visual art style that presents the elements of reality but in a distorted way. Things are not presented directly but rather through off beat color schemes and abstract symbols. That bring more effectiveness into the art work, popular imagery is used. The imagery is used through a conscious effort and this makes art work even more compelling. To some extent, pseudo-realism is often associated with graphic art. But that is just a minor resemblance.

Devajyoti Roy has really excelled at portraying realistic themes through vivid usage of color combination. He has this knack of balancing content and theme in an aesthetic way. His paintings represent harmony and innovativeness. All in all, Devajyoti Roy looks very promising.

Category: Indian artists | Tags: Devajyoti Ray, indian art world, Indian artists, indian painters, pseudo-realism | Leave a Comment

Indian contemporary artists: Vivan Sundaram

Monday, September 14th, 2009 | Author: pankti

vivan-sundaram

Among the exhaustive list of talented contemporary artists, name of Vivan Sundaram stands out. A true talent he is equally efficient in painting and sculpting. What sets him apart from the crowd is his approach towards painting. He is not your predictable drawing room artist. He would rather focus upon completing multidimensional projects that invite audience participation. That sounds quite interesting, no! He has often performed in an open-stage theatre where performer and spectator can indulge in live interactions. The best part of such performance is continuous feedback and multiple meanings evoked by the performer. In different words, that also provides an altogether different perspective of one’s work.

Art is a subject that does not have any fixed meaning. It is always subject to different interpretations of diverse range of spectators and interesting part is all of them are correct in their analysis. It is a huge compliment for an artist if his work is considered as a cultural product and not just an object to be hanged in the drawing room. Sundarama is one such artist who has managed to evoke fascinating reactions from the audiences. His work is not merely an imagination of unforeseen realities. It is rather concerned with socio-political history and the surrounding environment. The live interaction signifies viewers can observe and let their thought process run wildly and respond accordingly. The object they react to could be a painting or enclosures or a crafted construction.

Sundarama makes art works that invite reactions. That is quite a unique approach and very rarely seen on art landscape. Sundarama often redesigns, transforms and renews his works in a new fashion and presents it to the world. Considering his fresh approach towards the art works, he is definitely going to stay and excel.

Category: Indian artists, Indian Contemporary Art | Tags: Indian Art, indian contemporary artists, Vivan Sundaram | One Comment

Jayasri Burman

Sunday, September 13th, 2009 | Author: mritunjay

Jayasri Burman is a class apart when it comes to depicting everyday Indian life. She has done exceptionally well when it comes to showcasing the stark reality of normal Indian life. She has done it in a different way; mixing stark reality with magic of folklore and old-world charm. And how she managed to do it and what was her inspiration? Well, let’s hear it from the lady herself; “On starry nights, while we sat on the terrace, our elders would relate mythological stories and all those characters would mesh into themes that emerged as art motifs in my work. Now, when I am asked where I get my mythological references for my work, my answer is that they do not coincide with any authentic narrative but are figments of my childhood imagination that have surfaced on the canvas as figures and forms that I paint.”

Surprisingly, Jayasri has chosen watercolor as her painting medium and that’s a rarity in Indian art world. She uses bold themes and excels in making use of rich strong hues. Many of her art works can be seen with strange hybrid animas as the central characters. These characters have female figures and human heads. She relishes depicting the sensuous side of feminine forms. What gives her feminine forms certain aura are kohl lines eyes, flowers in the hair and casually draped sari. These characters are very aesthetic. She depicts male forms in equally ravishing way and in a fashion that male characters properly complement female forms. Jayasri is known for giving male-female relationship certain mundanity in her art works. She is basically a woman painter and her works speak for her. She has won several awards and exhibitions of her art works have taken place in many places.

Category: Indian artists | Tags: Indian artists, indian female artists, indian painters, Jayasri Burman, watercolor painters | Leave a Comment

Indian contemporary artists: Subodh Gupta

Monday, September 07th, 2009 | Author: pankti

gupta-subodh

Indian art landscape keeps throwing surprises at rest of the world. India has remained a fertile ground for new breed of artists with immense talent. It is not just about coming to the media light once in a lifetime but its more about silently dedicating life to art. Many such artists can be found across the Indian landscape. One can’t help but think highly of such artists who have kept improving the standards of the art in their way. One such artist is Subodh Gupta who has made people notice his sheer talent. The specialty of his work is connection between past and present experiences that are manifested through art. Many experts have termed Gupta’s work as eccentric imaginings. But these imaginations presented in colors symbolize dimensions of public myths and rituals. His work covers a wide gamut of motifs to important information in an eccentric way.

Subodh Gupta was born in Bihar and completed his studies from Patna. Several of his solo exhibitions have been held at places like Mumbai, Delhi and foreign locations like New York and Amsterdam. He has also been a winner of ‘Emerging Artist Award’ and scholarship from Lalit Kala Academy.

The work of Subodh Gupta can best be seen through the prism of complicated inter-relation and inter-connection of communities spread in urban and rural parts of India. Common events witnessed on a daily basis often work as his motivation. His sense of aesthetic is greatly influenced by objects found all around us. His work of art must be viewed from a contemporary perspective. It’s not about abstract themes. It is more about global issues affecting the fabric of Indian society. Themes like consumerism and the modernization of traditional Indian society are the hallmarks of his art works.

Category: Indian artists, Indian Contemporary Art | Tags: Indian Art, Indian contemporary artist, subodh gupta | Leave a Comment

Patachitra Art

Sunday, September 06th, 2009 | Author: chandni

The root of the Patachitra paintings was in the 8th century AD and it is regarded as one of the earliest forms of home-grown paintings. This symbolic form of folk significance is exclusive in the history of Indian and European paintings. The unlikely illustrative ideas, the peculiar conventions, the astonishing arrangement of line patterns and vivacious application of colors make this art form stupendous.

The foundation and growth of Patachitra paintings are associated with the Jagannath Cult. The devotional art of Patachitras is limited to the community of painters called the Chitrakars. The chitrakars reside and perform their inherited art in Puri and in villages on its borders, Raghurajpur and Dandshahi. Every Chitrakar family possesses a family sketchbook handed down from their ancestors. Gods and Goddesses, legends and animals, are all portrayed in these sketchbooks. These books are the chitrakars’ most precious belongings.

The process of arranging the canvas (Pata) is time-consuming, generally taking at least five days. It includes the preparation of a tamarind seed paste, which is mixed with water in a mud pot and focused to additional action. It is called the ‘Niryas Kalpa’. The chitrakar then chooses two pieces of cloth and attaches them together with this paste. Clay powder is then added to the combination and two or three coatings of this blend is applied on to the organized canvas on both the surfaces. When the canvas is dry, it is polished, a process that takes quite a few hours. Painting can begin only when it’s dry.

Patachitras are usually painted in a regular series of steps. The present practice is to put a thick coat of varnish with a cloth. Once the varnish dries, the Patachitra is trimmed down to the attractive margin. The standard painting is finished in a week. But there are complex ones that take maybe even a month.

Category: Indian art and Hindu Philosophy, Indian art journey, Indian artists | Tags: art, culture, traditional | Leave a Comment

A.Ramachandran

Saturday, September 05th, 2009 | Author: mritunjay

Indian art world is rich with amazing talents. Some of these talents took paint brush in their hands by sheer chance and some others by design. Take for example, A. Ramachandran, he was designed to be a civil engineer but destiny and his own interests had something else for him. He completed his Master’s degree in Malayalam literature in 1957. Initially, plans were laid to see him through his civil engineering but then art world beckoned. He had an avid interest in art since his childhood and that took him to join Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan and thereafter study art. He even completed his doctorate in paintings and his subject was mural paintings of Kerala.

After completing his doctorate, A Ramachandran moved base to Delhi in 1965. He joined Jamia Milia Islamia University as art Lecturer. Soon enough he was promoted to the post of a professor in the same department. He took voluntary retirement in 1992 and thereafter he was appointed as the honorary chairman of the Kerala Lalit Kala Akademi. He is also a winner of Padma Bhushan.

A Ramachandran excelled in expressionistic paintings. He believed in making powerful figurative. His paintings illustrate anger towards urban life and it was well reflected in his early paintings. Later on, his paintings stated to portray a different theme and it was of tribal community. This was a remarkable change in his perspective. He made great efforts to understand ethos of tribal community and this as certainly a great shift from urban life that he earlier loved to paint. He relished making Rajasthani tribes as the object of his artistic interest. In late eighties, he also created several art works on Kerala murals. Ramachandran really excelled at giving his paintings a visual aura. Ramachandran lives and works in New Delhi.

Category: Indian artists | Tags: A.Ramachandran, acclaimed indian painters, expressionistic paintings, indian art world, indian painters | Leave a Comment

M.F.Hussain

Saturday, July 25th, 2009 | Author: pankti

M.F.Hussain (Maqbool Fida Husain) is one of the most enigmatic artists of India who is known for his vigorous appreciation of the human circumstances and the traces of it can be found in his masterpieces

Born in 1915 at Pandharpur in Maharashtra; Hussain comes from a traditional Muslim background. As a child, Hussain learnt the art of calligraphy and loved to read poetries while he resided with his uncle in Baroda. After painting many countryside landscapes and completing his schooling in Indore, Hussain decided to move to Mumbai to make his career in art. He joined the J.J. school of arts and started to earn his living by painting billboards for feature films.

In 1947, Hussain won an award for his paintings at the annual exhibition of the Bombay art society and this marked the beginning of a vibrant colorful career ahead waiting for this art maestro. Hussain did a lot of art experimentation in his early years by blending different ethnic and mythological themes to create luminous art forms. His creativity, style and innovation in paintings have made him reach the acme in Indian art. F.N. Souza, a member of The Progressive Artist’s Group, which was formed to give new dimensions to Indian art, invited Hussain to become a member of it in 1948. By 1955 Hussain went on to become one of the foremost artists in India and was awarded the grand ‘Padma Shri’.

In 1971, Hussain was invited along with Pablo Picasso at the Sao Paulo Biennial. Apart from the several solo exhibitions, Hussain has many studios in major metropolitans of the country. In 1973, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan, in 1989, the Padma Vibhushan and finally was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 1986. In 1990, Hussain’s work started becoming controversial. Many criminal complaints were filed against him on the charges of promoting enmity between religious groups. These controversies also led to the closure of Hussain’s exhibition in London. In 2006, Hussain was even arrested and charged for hurting the sentiments of Indians. Be it whatever, Hussain still captivates and entices art lovers with his extraordinary, outstanding and unrivaled paintings

Category: Indian artists | Tags: M F hussain paintings, M.F.Hussain, works of M. F. Hussain | Leave a Comment

Painting Styles in India

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 | Author: chandni

Dance and music are fields where the most delightful styles and sweetest strains fade away before people can understand them, whereas painting holds the sentiments and expressions and retains the impact for a comparatively elongated time-period. Painting is basically a blend of lines, forms, colors, tones, textures and spaces. It makes an attempt to communicate the verbal and non-verbal terminologies with the strokes of the paint brush.

Painting styles are different from area to area, and from phase to phase. From ancient times to the era of evolution, painting has been the illustrative certification of man’s beliefs, and experiences. It has been demonstrated on the walls of the caves like the elephant caves, the Ajanta caves and the Bhimbetka caves, temples like the Brihadisvari temple and the Mukteshvara temple, and palaces like the very famous Taj Mahal, or dried leaved and cloth in the form of phadas, patachitras and coverlets.
Displayed manuscripts on palm leaf folios in the medieval period were then substituted by paper. The paintings of any given province and era, offers a peek into the intellectual and cultural awareness of the inhabitants who accomplished them. The techniques are influenced by the local customs and cross-cultural relations.
Besides all the other factors, the exceptional geographical positioning of India played a vital part in the blossoming of the diverse provincial techniques. The vivid and vibrant painting traditions, which built up, like the murals and wall paintings, Chaurapanchasika art(CPS Group), miniatures, scroll art, madhubani art, lepakshi art, etc added to the rich and diverse cultural inheritance of India. This also formed the base of succeeding genres. Cultural paintings bring to you the various painting techniques from the wealth trove of India. They have their distinctive painting style, regional and episodic individuality. The art field has brought a lot of international recognition to India and Indian artists from the traditional times to the contemporary times.

Category: general, Indian art and Hindu Philosophy, Indian artists | Tags: art, india, painting, styles | Leave a Comment

Prokash Karmakar

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 | Author: chandni

Prokash Karmakar is the son of the renowned artist Prahlad Karmakar. He was born in 1933. He missed learning art from his father because as soon as Prokash got acquainted with the basics of artwork, his father expired. Due to this mishap, Prokash had to quit art and join the army in 1949 to earn a living for himself. But he soon realized that art is where he wanted to be.
Prokash Karmakar won the National Award for his artistic skills in 1968. He made the country proud both, nationally and internationally. Prokash was a founder member of the Society of Contemporary Artists. He also was the initiate member of the Calcutta painters. His active participation and association in the promotional activities related to the art in Bengal is commendable.
Prokash Karmakar was the founder member of the Calcutta Art Fair as well. He has displayed his works in a number of solo exhibitions within the country. His exhibitions have been held in Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi. He has also taken part in a couple of group exhibitions in the country.
Prokash has primarily excelled in acrylic and oil painting. Karmakar’s artworks illustrate that he uses thick lines to draw human figures and to make the entire work look subtle, he uses simplified backgrounds. The patches in his paintings are highlighted completely in bold shades.
His sketches are noteworthy; especially for their expressive alterations of life and the existence of living beings. He is capable of expressing the sensuality of women worthily. He adds a twist and a weave to the usual linear patterns. Since a decade, Prokash Karmakar has been engaged in painting landscapes. This has been admired by millions of art lovers. He has been inclined to continue painting themes from the contemporary society leaving behind the traditional issues.

Category: Indian artists, Indian Contemporary Art | Tags: artist, contemporary, painter | Leave a Comment