Artists who form part of a monumental group show - I

The New York-based Aicon Gallery presents a new group exhibition, entitled ‘Mapmakers: The Evolution of Contemporary Indian Art’, which features works by Jitish Kallat, Bose Krishnamachari, Baiju Parthan, Justin Ponmany, Ravinder Reddy, T. V. Santhosh, and Chintan Upadhyay among others.They together represent the vanguard of contemporary Indian art that burst onto the international scene in the mid-2000s, turning the heads of museums, critics and collectors.

This exhibition showcases the important large-scale canvases through which these artists, among others, redefined Indian Contemporary and set the compass points for a new generation to follow.

An artist who explores present-day crises

Drawing inspiration from a variety of sources – ranging from cinema, news, media, art history and popular culture – T.V. Santhosh explores present-day crises through his art. Adapting images from digital and printed media, the artist creates eerily realistic canvases, charged by opinions on the general socio-political climate of India. His distinctive style makes his paintings recognizable without being predictable, via three key elements:

Drawing from photorealism, chromatic scale, and gradual variation - an undertone of profound disillusionment is rendered in his paintings, his realistic figures cast in iridescently blurred light, framed in hallucinatory shadows. The enigmatic aesthetic denotes a social commentary of protest, while the artist remains disengaged from the social events depicted. He veils, floods and distorts the subjects with this strange yet familiar light – opting for a cold, machine-made glow rather than the warmth of sunlight.  This stark filter conveys a macabre intensity, where reality and fantasy mix in his fluid surface bathed in an ominous luminosity.

Using sculpture as a primarily heraldic medium

Known for his brightly colored larger-than-life heads, Ravinder Reddy uses sculpture as a primarily heraldic medium. Assuming the characteristic stance of an announcer, the often monumentally scaled heads invariably stare frontally through wide eyes – never daring to glance sideways, or over the shoulder – eager to address all in attendance.

The message is further amplified by characteristically bold colors, gold inlay and intricate hairstyles. Reddy returns to the statuary of earlier pre-modern cultures and civilizations – such as ancient Egypt and Greece, where conventions of stark simplicity and rigid formality prevailed in artistic forms – emphasizing again his penchant for depicting the iconic theme of the herald.