2009

These paintings mark a definite departure from much of Manu Parekh's earlier work. While his concerns and techniques encapsulate the experimentation of a lifetime, his images are charged with a vigorous sense of transformation and renewal. Wildflowers explode, planets spin out along galactic trails, hybrids of flower, organ and polyp burst into being. Parekh's central preoccupation is the mysterious flow of desire that propels the self as well as the universe. His paintings evolve from an awareness of the processes of growth, change, decay and regeneration that are simultaneously psychic and cosmic.

Curated by Ranjit Hoskote

(Saturday, October 24 to Tuesday, November 17)

Somenath’s paintings titled, Structures are an intense response to the urban landscape. The structures loom large like gigantic mirages on faraway horizons, dematerialising into a sky that seems to thin into nothingness, as well.  Buildings and monuments, roads and maps and all else that is part of to a city dweller’s everyday existence   unspool upon the canvas lazily as if in a dream. Everything, those  tall , sky kissed spires, veils  of  haze or the air bubbles that well up and float  to the  edge of the canvas ,  give you an impression that the artist wants us to believe in his version  of the city- a  floating oasis.

Somenath  says that he uses the absence of people in his  canvas to beguile us. We are tantalised by the  clues and  hints of  their existence because they  echo our own  uncertainity.  The vast melting pot  of the urban conglomerate   sucks us into the vortex of anonymity and invisibility.  Yet, the city for all its vastness   contains innumerable   life experiences and it is these little stories that make a city real.  Under the skin of brick and wall lies the real terrain of beating hearts and soaring dreams. For all its glitter, the metropolis cannot escape   the dialectics of human existence. Poverty and plenty, sorrow and joy, freedom and incarceration.  It gives us the arena to actualize our finest aspirations and on the other hand it displays the worst of human nature with derelict lives and   appalling states of deprivation.   

Somenath responds to these inner contradictions. He explores the inner and the outer city, the dystopias and the illusions. However,   he usually redeems the city   and in spite of everything it turns into a magical space where anything is possible. In the early years, Somenath‘s work dwelled primarily on the dark underbelly of the city. There was an anger and morbidity in his works. Over the years this has given way to an acceptance.  His tone is mellow and the city is no longer a hostile place .In his recent works he prefers   to inhabit the diaphanous borders of dreams and the city becomes a thing that mind conjures up.

In this series of paintings the quintessential Somenath is still evident. It is hard to miss the drama and flourish. There is the meticulous eye for detail and his innate sense of harmony and spatial balance. He is very good at landscaping the urban maps we all carry within us. We can at once identify with both, the facade and its inner spirit. Yet a lot has changed.  Somenath‘s new work is characterised by play, light and energy. His colours are vaporous, and forms lyrical. There is an almost stylish creation of dream like states.

Somenath’s works are a tribute to his passionate love for the city. His talent for turning the busy and brusque metropolis into a personalised and intimate place pulsing with life and enchantment is what makes ‘Structures’ worth viewing.

Manju P. Pillai

(Wednesday, June 3 to Tuesday, June 9)

(Hotel Lalit Ashok, Bengaluru: Wednesday, February 25

Hotel Sheraton Chola, Chennai: Sunday, January 25)