Sarla’s Art Centre organised ‘Of Incessant Art’on Wednesday. Paintings of Koeli Mukherjee and Parameshwar Raju were showcased at the exhibition along with a marvellous combination of calligraphy and bamboo quill paintings.
Artist Parameshwar Raju, a trained designer and typography teacher, focuses on the epic Ramayana and wishes to create the epic with a blend of beauty and simplicity through his works. Although trained to work in various mediums, Parameshwar confines his image practice to calligraphy. Parameshwar explains that his engagement with calligraphy was essentially to reinforce the tradition of writing with the nib. Twenty-five years of his experience has strengthened his skill to put forward poignant images. The exhibition brought together Raju’s recent works — The Feet of Vishnu, Lakshmi and Saraswati, Parvati worshiping Shiva, Radiant Flow, The Three Chariots: Taladhwaja, Padmadhwaja and Garudadhwaja. Parameshwar has brought to cognition a plethora of images that convincingly strengthens the propensity of his works.
Koeli’s art works are created in bamboo quills and focuses on vibrant monochrome colours. Her paintings are simple with an aesthetic touch. Painting was a passion since her childhood days. This exhibition was a combination of calligraphy, water and ink drawings with handcrafted bamboo quills.
Koeli’s work experiences are developed into motifs as an esoteric, inner abstract struggle with a design quality. A dialogue between the artist and the surface is revealed through a process of creativity. Consequently images appear on the surface as an intricate lacework of ideas, impressions, emotions and convictions. The black areas enhance multiple dimensions of the paintings and texture play adds a tone of grey. The entire act of harmonising has been envisaged by freezing the experience into two-dimensional crystalline forms. The forms blend into each other, yet still remain distinctive.The artist here is in the painting and is not concerned by feministic ideologies. Instead, she is preoccupied by the depiction of the artist’s feminine self in relation to the abstract, and environment within which she copes to balance conflicting turbulent forces.
Though style and context of both the artists are diverse in their expression — both believe the notion of art as a celebration. Art making has allowance for all attitudes. it accommodates disjunctive juxtapositions,it is considered as sign language. Hence the use painting in rendering as a language by itself.
The art exhibition is from April 26 – May 2 at Sarla Art Centre, for public viewing.