An artist who explores the themes of terrorism and war

One of India's most successful young artists, TV Santhosh has witnessed a meteoric rise to fame in the last couple of years carving out a niche within the contemporary Indian art scene.

His sculptures and paintings draw a good response at auctions in India and internationally. His sociopolitical or philosophical leanings were shaped in the early 1980s owing to an activist group, Pratikarana Sangam, in Trichur, Kerala.

After the terror attacks on Mumbai that shook not only India but the entire wold, ‘the context of my works has become even more relevant’, TV Santhosh has stated. He adds: “My recent work is only a continuation of what I have been doing; it is nothing drastically different.” Essentially, he peeps into the perplexing phenomenon, finding out how the media reshapes public opinion. According to him, our understanding of current global and political issues is invariably influenced by the media.

Reviewing the artist’s recent works and their intent, Colin Gleadell of London Telegraph, mentions in an essay: “His paintings made in response to last November's terrorist attacks draw on details from the newspaper and TV images that shocked the world. The artist painted the images in such a way that they would seem like photographic negatives imbued with garish neon green, red and yellow colors.”

TV Santhosh tries to project the truth, hidden somewhere in the barrage of images in media to present alternative narratives. He elaborates: “It’s not easy to distinguish between factual representation and distortion of facts. What is projected may not be the whole truth. And it can be subjective. As an artist, I strive to formulate a language capable of capturing notions of reality.” He describes his artistic approach as philosophical one than political.

Having first trained as a sculptor, TV Santhosh terms himself a ‘painterly minded sculptor’. He creates art that has the clarity and composition of a film still. There is a strong aesthetic element in them. Vibrantly colored in luminous yellows, purples and greens, his paintings invariably grab our attention. He is a slow worker, pondering and laboring over a work of art for months. The slick, single-layered and watercolored effect his subjects demand is time consuming.

A photo artist who frames pervasive silence of the night

Mumbai-based Chatterjee & Lal and Delhi-based Photoink recently under a gallery exchange program hosted exhibitions in both the cities. The two have already collaborated on several projects previously, out of a common interest in previously overlooked and historic material.

In keeping with the core theme of Mumbai, ‘The city’ – the Focus Festival – the latter presented a show, entitled ‘Works from Noida: Soliloquy & Sleepers (2007 – 2012) by photo-artist Dhruv Malhotra. Terming him ‘a chronic insomniac who has photographed mostly the night, an accompanying note states that his pointed intention to reveal what’s concealed in the shadows of darkness set them apart.

It adds: “In ‘Noida Soliloquy’, the experience of the night is not obscured or made mysterious. Instead, the photographs made with long exposures, appear almost like day and surreal. It is in this visible darkness that attention shifts to the anatomy of an aspiring metropolis and its in‐between spaces. It was while wandering through the streets and parks of Noida he photographed the sleeping figures he stumbled upon.”

Dhruv Malhotra (b.1985) grew up in Jaipur. He majored in Economics from Mumbai University in 2006. Being chronically unable to sleep at night, he wanders the streets with his Mamiya 6 x 7 and a sturdy tripod. His work focuses on urban areas and cities at night and engages with issues of progress, modernity and the otherworldly. His first solo exhibition, Noida Soliloquy was held at Photoink in 2010. Photographs from his second series, Sleepers were included in a group exhibition at the Hyères Festival, France in 2010, where he was awarded a year‐long residency by the School of Visual Arts, New York.

The desire to photograph ‘sleepers’ made him to go beyond Noida as he began seeking them everywhere he went. If photographs from ‘Noida Soliloquy’ were largely marked by the absence of people, ‘Sleepers’ is defined by their presence. The binding thread is the pervasive silence of the night. It’s as a much a commentary about urban life in India as much as it is a self‐reflection of a photographer, who found himself, as he reveals, “Drifting through life without purpose, waiting for an awakening of dormant potential.’’

Peeping into Rekha Rodwittiya’s painterly realm

A belief that female empowerment and its associated emotional baggage is rather complex in nature marks the works of this staunch feminist. She airs strong voices that inhibit the desire to drive away the stereotype of prevailing gender bias, and clamors for a complete change of mindset in her work that also deals with diverse issues- socio-political as well as the intimate and personal in nature. Here's a quick look at Acclaimed artist her painterly realm that echoes her artistic concerns:

• Rekha Rodwittiya’s paintings allow a peep not only into her viewpoint but also her inner realm. They are not sheer illustrative stories about her personal life, and in keeping with her broader concerns, act as a sort of homage to the ancestry of womanhood, transforming the presence of her persona into its emblematic representation.
  
• For her, painting has invariably been a mode of spontaneous expression, prompting a dialogue with herself and those in tune with her philosophy or even against it. Encapsulating her philosophy, she has stated: “There are certain things within the history and the currency of life, which get absorbed into an artist’s vocabulary.
  
• "My work displays a consistent involvement with the human figure as a leitmotif to embody man’s predicament. I’ve also made a conscious choice to engage with the delineation of the female figure over time. Though the concerns largely remain the same, now the negotiations are different.”
  
• In fact, her personal politics are fashioned from none other than the perspective of gender issues. Her art is conceived from this very mold of her conscience, which holds her feminist spirit as its crux, with an urgency and passion, seeping into every crevice of her existence. Her protagonists often take up various postures or stances in exploring their individual identities.
  
• One observes a subtle play on time, with the artist walking the memory lane with snapshots of the past. But then not everything about her work is overtly sentimental. There is a scissor or a sword in her frames more often than once.

Atul Bhalla at PM Gallery & House in London

A group exhibition just concluded at the PM Gallery & House in London collated a diverse group of international artists - all inspired by their sojourns on foot – resulting in works done in a wide array of media such as photography, installation works, and film.

Underlining its core aim and thought, an accompanying note to the exhibition elaborated, “From land art and conceptual art to street photography and the essay film, across the last four decades many artists have acted as explorers whether making their mark on the rural wilderness, documenting small journeys, or undertaking close examination of the urban environment around them.”

The artist tries to explore the physical, political, historical, spiritual significance of water bodies to the urban environ and burgeoning population of his home city (Delhi) through works, incorporating sculpture, painting, video, photography, installation, and performance. His ‘Yamuna Walk’ featured in the international group show. The photographic account of his purposeful journey along the river points to different facets of life along Yamuna and underlines the recurrent paradoxes prevailing within India - breathtakingly beautiful areas leading to many others languishing in poverty. The highly polluted river, considered extremely sacred by the Hindus, suggests another such social schism, which is polluting Delhi both aesthetically and spiritually.

A project on similar lines, entitled ‘The Yamuna-Elbe’ (2011), had made the two rivers part of the public artworks. It aimed at making people rethink their sacred and need based relationship with the river and the fragile ecology it supports by making the river part of the art. Most of the works done by several Indian and German artists were to be lined up along the two riverbanks. Atul Bhalla had conceived a 12- part series of a photoperformance on Elbe. Gigi Scaria’s 25-foot-high, fascinating fountain had kept pumping water from the river and purify it as it’s pushed up.

A rebellious practitioner who fights for a cause

The ubiquitous female figure emerges as a recurring motif in Rekha Rodwittiya’s bold-hued paintings, representing diverse shades of emotions and concerns, sans objectifying the same. In fact, she has always resisted any kind of social diktats and censorship.

The celebration of womanhood has probably been the most enduring motif in her work amidst this politics of belonging that makes it stand apart. Regarding her position as a staunch feminist, the artist maintains that she has instinctively identified with those who are marginal or marginalized (by society).

One cannot and should not stay on the periphery of issues close to one’s heart, she reasons. There’s a tender touch to her narration as well. Trying to retell stories we tend to carry with us, she divulged an amalgamation of truths and desires, memories and histories - the residues of experience that define our existence in her 2006 series.

According to her, metaphors mostly culled from specific reference points, get transformed by virtue of how they’re delivered, to evoke wider meanings in the end. In terms of material, she is also keen to engage with the modern by employing the pop culture’s kitschy aesthetic. Curiously, while she affirms ‘I’m a feminist’ with palpable ease, she is equally adamant about being a practitioner sans a prefix like being a feminist artist. Rekha Rodwittiya’s oeuvre is set within the firm framework of this consistent feminist preoccupation.

A socially conscious individual that she is, as amply reflected in her gestures going beyond canvas, she has actively participated in causes like the launch of a recent charity show to support the India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) that encourages multiple means and methods of cultural enquiries. The processes of learning, both collective and personal hold value in it, a thought that she holds dear to her heart and one which drives her own personal politics as an artist, she concludes.

An artist as homo-eroticism his core theme

A press release accompanying an exhibition of works by late Bhupen Khakhar courtesy Grosvenor Gallery highlights the several major aspects of his illustrious career:

• Largely self-taught, Bhupen Khakhar developed a cleanly executed, richly colored style in oil, watercolor and gouache. His focus on narratives, which combined daily life and fantasy, stood in contrast to the abstraction and expressive figuration that prevailed among progressive artists of an older generation.
  
• He set himself further apart from the earlier generation in the 1980's when he made his homosexuality a chief subject of his art. The artist called this as the ‘gay period’, in which he tried to explore and represent the world of homosexuals as he knew and understood it. First came the small figures of male nudes. The figures got bigger and bigger; then came the solitary large male nudes and then two male nudes together.
  
• The artist then had noted: "I have chosen homo-eroticism as a theme because I am gay. What is happening in India - social rejection - did happen once in countries like USA and Europe. The police in all societies have beaten up gays and lesbians. But now they have been accepted by society. For me, there is nothing unnatural about homosexuality."
  
• In his sketching, a practice he maintained throughout his career, Khakhar showed his untutored, candid best. His drawings which filled many sketch books functioned as a ready pool of visual notations which he sometimes used discreetly while visualizing his more ambitious creative endeavors in figurative oil and watercolor works as well as in prints. His openness to the life of the people around him lent an authenticity of the sketches. A few of them reveal the playful imagination of indulgent sexual self- seeing reveries; often they seem too real to be in reality.
  
• Drawn while day-dreaming while sitting in his home studio or while on his many travels, particularly to small pilgrimage towns and country sides he exposes best his vulnerabilities. With their disarming simplicity and directness, they are closest to his watercolors and prints. While many of his oil paintings are passionately laboured and anxiety ridden, worked-over for long periods of time, the sketching and watercolors eased him, often lending them an uninhibited disarming wit, spontaneity and even an uncanny quirkiness and bizarre realness.

What’s so (not) special about Damien Hirst’s spot paintings?

Damien Hirst, born in 1965 in Bristol, England, had attained fame for his unique oeuvre and shows across the world, including solos ‘The Agony and the Ecstasy’, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Naples (2004); ‘A Selection of Works from Various Collections’, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2005); Astrup Fearnley Museet for Moderne Kunst, Oslo (2005); ‘For the Love of God’, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (2008); ‘No Love Lost’, The Wallace Collection, London (2009); ‘Requiem’, Pinchuk Art Center, Kiev (2009); and ‘Cornucopia’, the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco (2010).

The celebrated artist received the Turner Prize in 1995. His work is included in many important public and private international collections. However his recent showcase has failed to impress and enthuse all. For example, in a rather critical review of the project, Roberta Smith of The New York Times notes that the quality of the whole extravaganza tends to mirror is like his career - up-and-down.

Yet it’s a touch paradoxical considering the narrow focus. Hirst is showing nothing but just fields of enamel dots, those smooth discs of color applied to canvases in orderly grids at intervals equal to the discs’ diameter. They can be any color, except that they can’t repeat on any given white canvas (although they come extremely close); the people making the works choose the colors.

The critic pointedly mentions that relentless evenness of technique and formula reflects the artist’s stated desire to make works, which seem to have been done by a machine. Yet what’s really striking is the variations, the unevenness, of both touch and finish, and the manner in which these spot paintings do that usual Hirst thing even within their narrower confines: they swing from good to ordinary. Some are wonderful; some aren’t paintings in a sense, just expanses of inert spots.