Of Art & Activism

Sheba Chhachhi's work will be featuring in a very special auction fundraiser in Singapore this November 14^th to 17^th. REDRESS: Stop the Traffic! curated by Bharti Lalwani, Susan Olij and Simon Ng and organized by Bamboo Network Asia in collaboration with UNIFEM, serves to raise funds for Maiti Nepal, a Kathmandu based organization that rescues and rehabilitates victims of sexual slavery and human trafficking.

Sheba's “Bearer of Mace (1999)”, an image from the iconic Ganga's Daughter's series will be central to the exhibition theme of gender politics and suppression.

Excerpted from a large body of work on women ascetics, this portrait of a female acolyte of a woman spiritual leader moves beyond normative binaries of masculine/feminine, erotic/spiritual, contemporary/traditional and religious/secular. Women ascetics were described as dangerous to the family by the Grih Sutras, an ancient Hindu manual of good conduct for housewives. 

Today, these wandering mendicants are a contemporary, living link into a rich history of female rebels and mystics in India. These are transgressive women, not wives, mothers or daughters but women who have dared to re- invent themselves in relation to the metaphysical. Though contained within seemingly traditional subcultures, their actions and bodily transformations chafe against easily codified definitions of such usually ethnographic subjects. Here, each woman offers an avant-garde performance of self, subverting conventional assumptions about gender, sexuality, domesticity and female piety. 

Maiti's Founder, Anuradha Koirala, is an inspiring and determined woman who was named CNN Hero of the Year 2010 for her devotion to the cause of human trafficking. Anuradha is our Guest of Honor and key-note speaker for REDRESS.

An online catalogue of artworks available for sale can be accessed at:

http://www.myarttracker.com/node/428223/exhibition-artworks/by-all/REDRESS-Art-Exhibition

Pandit Bhila Khairnar: Light-winged Smoke

“That moment in the evening, when dusk begins to set and the cattle comes home raising dust in its wake, is magical...it gets light to dark as the dust gently blots out the sun, there a gentle breeze in the air and all fatigue disappears!” -Pandit Bhila Khairnar

Warm-hued tones, akin to a glowing mist, drift within Pandit Bhila Khairnar's sombre canvases are currently on show at Volte Gallery. Hailing from a modest farming background from Nasik, the artist describes his memories spent in idyllic fields and attempts to recapture that point between twilight and dusk when the light changes in a few seconds and the open sky is a hue of myriad colours, intangible and mystic.

Living and extending his art practice in the city over the last two decades (his first show being in 1992), Khairnar treats his canvases as two-dimensional fields where colour and light can shift in space and time. Using industrial brushes, on a super flat surface, the artist lays on different shades of colour building up to sixteen layers resulting in a subtle play between light and dark, shadow and smoke. “Light-winged Smoke” is in fact the title of a poem by Henry David Thoreau which unwittingly encapsulates Pandit Bhila Khairnar's sentiments in words.

Citing V.S Gaitonde and Prabhakar Barve as his prime influences, Khairnar is a pure abstractionist who has dissolved the traditional points of figuration and composition, thereby deconstructing such elements to concentrate on the act of painting itself. His art practice solely and unapologetically concentrates on the aesthetics of colour, light and unconscious form.

The title for his show is inspired by a poem by Henry David Thoreau which fittingly describes in sensuous words what Pandit attempts to capture on canvas. We also hosted a very special opening pairing the exhibition with a classical Dhrupad recitation performed by Uday Bhawalkar.

Innovation & Knowledge in Art

Recently Tushar Jiwarajka curated an exhibition at INK Conference at Mariott in Pune from 11 - 14 October 2012

The annual  INK conference in association with TED, brings together the world's movers and shakers who share ideas, exchange stories and perspectives which facilitate an open exchange. This conference therefore presented a unique opportunity to include art as well in the conversation on critical and creative thinking. Artists, through the 21st century are pushing the boundaries of imagination through their visual vocabulary well-armed with technological innovations since the Machine age, which continue to alter our comprehension of art in contemporary times. The advent of numerous social media and networking sites mean that art today is accessible through several online platforms while multiple perspectives and criticisms can be shared instantly. Film, video, sound and such technical aspects have been incorporated into new media installations and two-dimensional works to confront and tackle social, cultural and global issues.

Artists in this exhibition stood as fine exemplars of such innovations, seamlessly furthering critical approaches in their contemporary art practice. The exhibition included works of Indian and international artists on display or as images for the INK display screen, such as Ranbir Kaleka, Sheba Chhachhi, Subodh Gupta, Wim Delvoye, Bose Krishnamachari, KK Raghava, Alex Grey and specially designed ergonomic furniture from "Obataimu" which is the brainchild of Noorie Sadarangani.