Art Alive Gallery brings Moments and Transformation: Finding Life in Materiality, a group show comprising seven artists from Chennai and Puducherry.
Says gallery director Sunaina Anand, “We are excited to showcase these works. These artists will be showing for the first time in Delhi and we look forward to the city’s response to their works. As these artists have explored the use of materials such as iron, shell, fabric, wood, paper mache, fishing net, leaf and seeds, the creations strongly reflect the environment they come from.”
Padmanaban T
He creates a rich visual effect by combining watercolour with intricate and detailed paper cuts that he superimposes on the painted background creating an aura of enigma where the painting literally plays hide and seek.
Padmanaban uses the rich tones that watercolour provides to give his paintings a strong physical presence. “My paintings contain echoes of diverse cultures. The works transform standard notions of contemporary into a uniquely expressive form,” Padmanaban says.
He believes the contemporary art scene has given birth to more experimentation. “It shows that technological innovation can be integrated into existing art practices,” he adds.
Augustine Thilak
A performance artist along with being a painter and a photographer, Augustine believes performance art is slowly getting the recognition it deserves.
“There is definitely a difference between when I was performing in Kolkata five years ago and now. Many artists practise it now. India’s rich culture already has different forms of art which are closer to performance art,” he says.
Augustine takes inspiration from nature and says that it helps him reflect on the relationship between man and his inner self. “I see balance in nature and as an artist I strive to bring that in the art I make,” he adds.
Manjula Selvam
Originally a fashion designer, Manjula works with remnants of fabrics from her studio, out of which she fashions flowers, cushioned circular forms and plaits.
With these she composes instinctual and intuitive abstract compositions. The elements of flowers or plaits are stitched firmly on the canvas to create elegant and intricate kaleidoscopic wall frames.
“Recycling has always been my hobby and when I started working with fabric, I couldn’t see them go into the bin. So I kept storing all the leftovers. The hunger for creating something unique is why I was able to discover this. Moreover, I could create art with fabric only because I’m confident and comfortable in handling the needle than the brush,” she reveals.
Lakshmi Srinath
An artist who works in mixed media, Lakshmi Srinath’s works assemble tantric symbols, textiles, flowers and many other elements derived from tradition.
“It’s the way I see life. A multitude of visuals, most of them may even be unrelated to one another, yet there is a perfect visual balance,” she explains.
Her works have uninhibited vibrancy and verve along with the inherent symbolism—how difficult is it to strike a balance? “More than symbols, I’d like to think of it as an expression of concepts... I use a lot of primordial shapes which I feel have always been in existence. And for me, it’s all about juxtaposition of them (the forms) with colour and texture. I represent the colours of Tamil Nadu just the way I see them,” she smiles.
Kirti Chandak
Her art is defined by her life experiences—daily happenings underlined with some aspirations for a better world. The presence of nature always plays an important role in her life and work.
“You will generally see my works unfolding against a backdrop of nature, or a motif of nature is used as an analogy to compare and transform what I want to say,” says Kirti. Besides her artwork and teaching at Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Puducherry, she has also founded the Tasmai Art Centre.
“Art practice along with creating a platform for art adds to one’s creativity and I feel enriched sharing my space with other artists. It comes full circle because being a practicing artist and then running an art space makes one better equipped to identify with the whole creative process. Tasmai is like my canvas—ever-evolving, ever-changing and always open to anything creative,” she adds.
Gubendhiran K
Here is a painter and a sculptor who combines two mediums dexterously and creatively, resulting in a hyper-realistic language. “I use mixed media to depict my subjects.
"The form of art which I create requires a particular kind of material for the perfect visual representation,” he says. Gubendhiran also incorporates different materials in his art that he salvages from the seashore where he lives.
“I use sand, fishing nets, and shells. I’m inspired by these materials because I’ve spent my entire childhood around them,” he says. Gubendhiran’s subjects too are drawn from his observation of his surroundings, along the coastal area.
Portarasan S
Hailing from a village with a background in farming, Portarasan believes that his journey from the village to the city and also abroad has helped him with deciding his themes.
“Throughout this journey, I have been constantly observing what people’s needs are. Being a single father, I consider my daughter my greatest inspiration.
My thoughts on all this have helped me choose my themes,” he says. He merges ceramics and metals in his artworks—a difficult choice given the fact that ceramic is a delicate medium and metal is a strong one and the two are poles apart.
But he counters, “Ceramic, though delicate, can be used to convey a message very strongly and hence it is my favourite medium. I wanted to combine another strong medium with it and make it look even stronger. Hence I turned to metal. The challenges in bringing the two together keep me going.”