2011

Metonymical Subtext

Solo show by Jaideep Mehrotra

Tao Art Gallery is pleased to present "Metonymical Subtext", a solo exhibition of recent works of Jaideep Mehrotra!

Jaideep’s paintings combine an aesthetic relation, between the painted canvas and the textual overlay. from this unique fusing of the two layers emerges an intriguing culmination which is rich in visual portrayal and intense in intellectual ideology The composition of the painted with the printed provides a framework within which the juxtapositioning of the contrasting media correlate on different significant levels.

A pioneer of the digital medium in India as an at form. laideep has continually pushed the conceptual thresholds of his visual language in order to integrate different elements in his works - the historical with the contemporary, the traditional with the modern.

"Metonymical Subtext" is a culmination of 3 years of investigating how perception and meaning are altered by shifting of traditional parameters. The result of which is the present set of works which have been maneuvered away from conforming to the orthodox approaches and perceptions.

One of our finest mid-career artists, Jaideep Mehrotra has been a significant presence in the Indian art world for the past 4 decades. Starting his artistic career at a young age of 13. Jaideep works across mediums like Oil, Acrylic, cast resin sculptures, gidee prints, site specific installations and video art. Included in his 22 solo exhibitions, some prominent ones are "Shadow Play", Singapore 2005" Alchemy of Play", Dubai 2006, Transmogrification of a City", Mumbai 2007 & "Growing Panes in Solitude, New Delhi 2009. He has widely participated in many significant group exhibitions and workshops in India and abroad and his powerful works are part of prestigious art collections around the world.

(Thursday, December 1 to Sunday, December 25)

parallel

Solo show by Payal Khandwala

For almost four decades, my connection to art has been that of an admirer turned lover turned collector. I never "'invested' in art. Therefore neither can I evaluate it nor criticise it, so I will refrain from manufacturing an endless interpretation of Payal's work.

As her friend, (all good friends automatically become guides and philosophers for each other) I choose to talk about the artist rather than her work. If art is a 'surplus emotion', according to Rabindranath Tagore, then Payal is a prolific artist! If one goes by the 'quantum' of work, then she has been almost unseen in recent years!

Asked why she wasn't painting since the past couple of years, she says, "I was producing a child and isn't that the most creative thing a woman can do? Why do I have to paint in the same period?" Now that Kalpana Shah at Tao has managed to convince her to resume, she takes it so seriously that she commissions me to make her an art studio in Alibag and lives there for months on end with her daughter Mira. So for Payal, artistry is in her own being. She does everything from her strong aesthetic base.

While many architects and interior designers work out of chaotic uninspiring places and many a fashion designer covers his or her own body in clothes completely different from what he or she may design, Payal works, wears, lives her art continuously. In frying to find her spiritual balance belween her polarities she "ying yangs" belween her dynamic figurative drawings and her quiet minimal abstracts. Both express her equally. Since art is a direct communication between the artist and the viewer I can only introduce you to Payal. Through her work she can engage with you in your own dialogue.

(Saturday, November 5 to Saturday, November 26)

Shesh Lekha

A collection of limited edition prints of watercolors by Paresh Maity and calligraphic renderings of poems by Pritish Nandy

(Wednesday, October 26)

Tiger! Tiger!

Solo show by Nabibakhsh Mansoori

Save the tiger!

(Saturday, September 24 to Saturday, October 8)

Ballad of the War that Never was & other Bastardized Myths

Solo show by Ali Akbar Mehta

The Harlequin appears in Dante's Inferno 'roaming the streets with a band of devils, searching for souls to drag back to Hell'; In Medieval French miracle plays; to more positive and mystical interpretations with a multi-colored diamond-patterned costume that embodies the many-sidedness and richness of life.

The Harlequin - almost Dionysian in the liberating chaos of life is in opposition to the central figure of the canvas works - the Hero of human myth - Apollonian in seeking order and fulfilling his destiny. The Harlequin is a prankster and trickster, intrusive and greedy, always ready to lie, an anarchist reveling in chaos. But he is also witty and carefree, exuding innocence and naiveté. He is nimble and light, made of air, physically and morally flexible. He is an embodiment, simultaneously, of the light and the dark, and the minute infinite layers of gray that make up the composite of human beings.

The Harlequin exists is in a world alien to ours; a surreal world of chaos, dreams and constant flux. A virtual world, a world without texture, plastic, strange. The world of the Hero even though stripped of cultural markers and non-specific to any culture is still within the physical known realm. The physical medium, therefore, of oil on canvas of the Hero, becomes inadequate for the Harlequin. The polarity of the Noble and self sacrificing Hero and the Harlequin is reflected in the polarity of the two worlds, and the two mediums. The organic and the physical world of the hero, and the synthetic, artificial and virtual world of the Harlequin. The non-destructive easily malleable easily changeable nature of virtual world of the computer becomes in fact the ideal medium for creating this world of the Harlequin.

Chaos in the physical world exists at a level not perceived by human senses. The nature of human consciousness is one that seeks to impose order and patterns into seemingly random events. The computer as a tool provides a non-human intervention in bringing a degree of controlled randomness. It creates a parallel universe and space-time continuum

Curated by Ranjit Hoskote

(Friday, September 16 to Wednesday, October 5)

BETWEEN THIN LINES: the Metamorphosis

Solo show by Arunanshu Chowdhury

We are crossing over in our made to order means of transport. The light and free ride lifts me to the fearless and the unexplored ground. There is hay for a safe landing. Time – travel seems to have always fascinated the adventurous, leaving behind the trapped, clone-like existence. In other words, the reality. The dangerous new: deceptive or convenient invites one into an evil – coexistence of pleasure and trance.

(Friday, September 23)

Liberation: Lush & Transcendent

Solo show by Sohan Qadri

Sohan Qadri an abstract expressionist was truly liber ated in his life. How interesting systematic & musical his thought process was really wonderful. Through his works we travel in to a terrain of straight simple medi tative world of tranquility in pure colours. We can feel his celebration through shades and layers. His simple yet very effective language makes him one of the most powerful abstract artists who lived liberated and created his own world without being affected of his surroundings. The mesmerizing power in the composi tions and blend of colours and texture in Qadri’s work leaves the beholder spellbound. His powerful handling of an exceptional medium of natural dyes inks on pa per with incisions makes his works unique. Our salute & tribute to a divine soul.

(Monday, July 25 to Tuesday, August 16)

Black Brown & The Blue

Retrospective by Shuvaprasana

Every day, every hour there are images that flash across my mind’s eye. All I do is to release them onto the canvas. I learn the language, the lines, the colours and the craft that makes this possible…. Sometimes it makes for art. Sometimes it doesn’t. But I play judge as to whether it does or doesn’t. Of course the discerning audience, too have their say...but in an entirely different way. That’s what creates the conflict. By opening myself up to the world, I also open myself up to scrutiny. Have I been able to express what I had to say? Have I been able to release what’s inside me? Can any outsider judge that better than me? Including where I have cut corners with my muse? Who is to tell me the way I have wanted to show this world? Who knows my vision better than I do? ... There’s no end to the journey...I have been walking endlessly in search of a goal. May be it’s just a mirage...who knows?

Shuvaprasanna

(Friday, April 8 - Saturday, April 23)

Old & New

Paintings by RB Bhaskaran

In this body of works Bhaskaran has clearly achieved a break, a forward thrust in his artistic repertoire, which he was struggling to create and has come away successful. Leaving behind the sensuousness in details and tactile textures, simplifying his composition, the forms majestic and colours stridently bold, confident and youthful – a marker of his ever youthful enthusiasm and passion. Yet a scrutiny of his composition reveals his interfacing with three important “forms” namely the vase, fish and bird. The implications of these interventional forms in this breakthrough series are rooted deeply in subconscious, unraveling Bhaskaran’s desires to lift his art to another plane. Fish gestures towards non conformism, persistence, a connection with one’s higher self as well subliminal creativity. The symbolic meaning of bird includes conflict, boldness, skill and knowledge. Since Bhaskaran is concerned with individuality and uniqueness of subjective experiences; anxiety and angst becomes his preoccupation. The works manifest dynamic tension, since he has made a definite break in his methodology of picture making. There is now an interweaving of form and space that denies concreteness of shapes emerging from space but are tightly compacted and integrated. The process is a departure and not surprisingly offers a new visual look to his works. The vase a ubiquitous motif in still life composition is expressive of stability and position. Is Bhaskran marching forward in his quest to mark a posture of remaining distinct and different? His versatile trajectory makes this journey obvious.

Excerpts from VERSATILE TRAJECTORY: ART OF R.B. BHASKARAN

(Wednesday, February 23 to Saturday, March 5)

Paradigm Shift

Solo show by Brinda Miller

Brinda’s latest works can be interpreted as a new phase wherein her preoccupations are now centred on principles of Abstract Art. Form has lost its relevance in her landscapes: trees, houses, mountains and figures assert their presence in vestigial lines – as a straight line, an angle, an arc or an ellipse, or other minimal geometrical devices. They continue to exercise a structural function – primarily that of a scaffolding that supports the many layered welter of colours and their interplay of assonant and dissonant tonalities. The artist manipulates her colours with confidence, deftly contrasting splashes of colour with areas that have been stripped, ridged or enhanced with gold and silver leaf. Her strategies include found objects -- bits of textured cloth and wire mesh. All these diverse materials are strung together and tightly held in a coherent composition.

Although she employs a wide and varied palette, the colour harmonies in her paintings display shared sensibilities, unifying her works as a group in time and space. The canvases gleam and glint gold and silver through adumbrations of deep mysterious browns, loamy umbers and iridescent greens. Bright hues of turquoise blue, dense swathes of indigo and ubiquitous shades of tumultuous reds impart liveliness to her works.

Brinda’s paintings with their new approach will be showcased under the apt nomenclature “Paradigm Shift”. Clearly, her paintings with their conscious denial of form, their preoccupations with colour, particularly its lyrical qualities as well as its aesthetic values, are no longer to be seen as abstract landscapes. They are now chromatic symphonies with an ineffable inner resonance.

Dr. Saryu Doshi