Gods do have a million avatars. Just look at the many faces of the elephant lord Vinayakar, who has been made, sculpted, painted and put together in every imaginable and unimaginable form and style, at the Ambrosia Gallery in Anna Salai.
W
hile barely a couple of days left for Vinayaka Chathurthi (September 17), a total of 35 artists and sculptors have displayed their works on Ganesh for the exhibition titled, ‘Yashaskaram’, which will go on till September 30. Hailing from Chennai and other neighbouring cities and, even states too, these artists have already begun celebrating the festival in style.
Curated by Udaya Shankar who is also one of the contributors, the exhibition has paintings, collages, sculptures and even terracotta idols from Maharashtra brought in to the exhibition. “It has been my wish to set up a Vinayakar-themed exhibition for five years now, as we all know it is one of the most-painted divine forms. Apart from curating the show, I have also contributed one paintings of a meditative Vinayakar with sun and the moon on his either side. To me, that painting indicates first salutations reserved for him before starting any new project,” says the visibly happy curator.
“We are the first to celebrate the festival,” pointed out 21-yearold Rajesh R V, the youngest of the lot whose collage of Vinayakars made out of magazine papers stood out. The artist went on to explain that the Vinayakars he made are in black (contrary to the fair-skinned Vinayakars usually portrayed, he says) and musical. “Two Vinayakars, one of whom is playing the flute and the other playing the drums, have their own vahanas, the rats, dancing to their tunes,” added the artist who admitted that getting together the right kind of coloured papers to match an elephant head and a human’s body was a tough task but he managed to pull it off by using mixed media.
While paintings are a way to depict the deity, what’s Ganesh Chathurthi without idols? Contributing her share to the exhibition is sculptor S Hemalatha with four sculptures of the deity made out of copper and enamel. “Vinayakar is my favourite mythological character and out of five idols I sculpt, two are his,” said the TN state award-winning sculptor whose forte is mythological characters.
Alongside the sculptures, close to 50 miniature terracotta Vinayakars made by Rajesh Kulkarni from Maharashtra and curated by Vivek have also found their place in the exhibition. Vivek said that these works are made by artisans from the Konkan Maharashtra and their colours are characteristic of their soil.