Flame of the forest

The flame-of-the-forest, or Palash flowers were in bloom well before Holi, all over Delhi and Gurgaon, as soon as weather turned warm. The Palash trees had shed their old leaves, and one could see the buds on the bare branches, as a curtain-raiser, till suddenly the trees were in full bloom, the branches laden with flaming orange-red flowers.

Dried Palash flowers or Tesu, would be earlier put into huge brass caudrons of water, to extract a thick vibrant yellow colour, to be used for playing Holi. I'm hoping there will be enough people next year to put a stop to the present artificial colours, and get back to the natural colours of Tesu.

Also, maybe this will lead to more initiatives to plant Palash/ Tesu trees along our city roads. The Palash trees look majestic, and as the dry Tesu petals fall off, they make for a wonderful flaming orange pavement, a rare treat for the eyes!

An Art Factory

Surbhi Mehta, a young Gurgaon based artist has been busy the last few weeks creating an art hub in a large unused space of about an acre. The space was part of her father's paper factory. It came with a big open space, with peepul and neem trees, several potted plants, some factory sheds, and various unused machine parts, spares and paraphernalia.

The place has been cleaned, pruned and organized, the factory paraphernalia strewn around along with art installations and paintings, to form a vibrant creative space. An art-meets-factory workspace area. Complete with a factory style "chai" stall.

What also sets the place apart, is that though it is right in the middle of urban concrete and chaos, once you are inside the gates of the factory, it is a place with large trees and birds chirping, and a creative ambiance.
The plan is to hold art events and workshops and create an "open-space" of art and conversation. A few pics of the open-space:

Light between the trees

I love to look up and see the light filtering through the branches of trees. And sadly one sees the number of trees dwindling at a fast pace in the urban environment, and those that are there are not the old, dense types with a generous spread of branches. The modern urban trees mostly have narrow trunks, and a dismal famished appearance.

So I loved the exhibition of photographs, paintings and videos at the Art Heritage Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi, by Ms. Kavita Jaiswal, many of which captured the spread of old, wise trees, and the light filtering through them.

Here is one that I loved:

What also appeals to me in her works is the seemingly dynamic flow of materials over time, as in this one - and there were several such - with minimal colours, mostly shades of black, grey and white. These compositions reminded me of the earth's formation through the ages; only the flow was important, not the form :

Then and now - Raja Ravi Verma's women

The depiction of women in Raja Ravi Verma's women were a sign of the times, and as he saw and understood them..

The women were all drawn from mythological characters, the Hindu epics, or from royal households. The artist has either deified them, or painted goddesses themselves, or painted "Naayikas" or heroines: bejewelled and silk-saree clad women of leisure. The women gracefully reclined or rested against pillars, in grassy meadows, well tended gardens and in opulent palaces.

The exhibition at Art Alive, Gurgaon is interesting in its modern interpretations, and is on for the whole month. I certainly found it worth a visit, and have mentioned it here before.
Sharing here two such interpretations: the first is trademark Atul Dodiya.

The second work is by Paresh Maity.

The line, the story and the image

The new and interesting works in painting were to be found in the contemporary art galleries, and in some of the international galleries, at the India Art Fair.

Nissim Ben Aderet sketches only in black and white. Also, his compositions are done entirely with lines of different tones. I was delighted to meet the artist at the fair, and he shared that he uses a single, or continuous line "in one breath" as it were, to create his work.
As you can see in the image, with his "one-line" composition, the artist is able to create entire sets of people, spaces, and relationships. There were several such one-of a-kind artists at the fair.





The established Indian galleries had works of a lot of senior artists on view. There were several gems among them. But one would have wished to see newer works as well. Some of the senior artists had included some of their newer work for the Art Fair as well, like these paintings and installations of Paresh Maity.

Sights and Sounds at the India Art Fair

The India Art Fair is on at NSIC grounds, New Delhi for one more day. While there were a lot of "classics" on display, what I really liked were all the different kinds of installations. There was a huge variety in terms of subjects handled, materials used, and the kind of visual experience.

I have shown images hereof some of the ones that I liked just to share the great variety:

Interesting textured surfaces...shadows and shapes, an animal head,.....and drapes.....







Each one of these rounded baubles was like a large lens with different images being formed in each case. Different fabrics encased each of the shiny baubles, and they were strung together and draped over the edge of this sofa.....and then, there was the ascetic...

Visitors would of course have their own interpretations, but there was not too much out-to-shock kind of variety, just layers of complexity, and visual appeal...

Elevating the ordinary

A solo exhibition of the works of artist Subodh Gupta was inaugurated at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), Delhi, last week. The exhibition called "Everything is inside" has been curated by renowned art historian Germano Celant.

Subodh Gupta is best known for using everyday objects of use, and skilfully combining them to give us a fresh perspective. This installation with commonplace baggage loaded on to the ubiquitous yellow-top taxi is the one that has given the exhibition its name.

Some of use are familiar with the artist's usage of pots and pans, buckets, utensils and kitchen utensils all made of steel, which we use in the kitchen and barely look at regarding them as commonplace objects, but find displayed in entirely new ways in Subodh Gupta's works.



There are several new objects used and different compositions in this exhibition.
Like this one using the traditional Kerala fishing boat, which brings alive an entire ecosystem of a different way of living.