‘Vicissitudes of the Constructed Image’

‘Vicissitudes of the Constructed Image’ was an interesting curatorial project that attempted at locating a relevant whole of connected issues that binds the procedure and concerns of some of the leading names in the Indian aesthetic sphere within the macrocosm of historically ripe/subdued issues, economically adrift/focused, politically propagated/aloof venerations.

The latest show at Bangalore based Tangerine Art Space acted as a collective expositive of artists accumulating artistic pollen from multitude sources, experiences, grounded representations, or peripatetic meanderings.

It formulated discourse on these levels through the works of renowned artists like Arunanshu Chowdhury, Anandajit Ray, Azis T M, Dhruvi Acharya, Farhad Hussain, George Martin, Lokesh Khodke, Manish Pushkale, Minal Damani, Mithu Sen, Pooja Iranna, Pratul Dash, M Pravat, Rajan M Krishnan, Rajesh Ram, Reji Arackal, Sujith S N, Sudhanshu Sutar, Tanmoy Samanta, T V Santhosh, and Yashwant Deshmukh among others.

Arunanshu Chowdhury’s perception of world hauls up with lush, imaginary winds. The small paintings, entitled ‘Wind through the Willow’ echoed sentiments of places and people visited. The works were intended as a visual and conceptual link between the multiple frames of one’s journey. In T V Santhosh’s watercolors, the detailed imagery was delineated by tonal gradation that darkens the borders, bestowing an enigmatic aura to the monochromatic surface.

Dhruvi Acharya’s works elicit a sense of futuristic déjà vu. The stylistic blend of beauty and pathos finds its visual currency in popular culture references and techno-utopian visions of the day. The artist furtively mediates the crisis of tomorrow through a vivid, unhinged depiction akin to an ambiguous yet lived fantasy.

In ‘Bite’, Mithu Sen adjoined the experiential and emotional metaphors associated with the act of ‘biting’. A device of defense and equally of arousing sensuality, biting is treated by the artist as a means of narrating the pain and agony, dental inflictions has brought to her. Through the subtle usage of watercolor and intricate depiction of delighting elements like pink and red roses, multiple associative of the mechanism of an eccentric part of human body was brought to fore.