Art for Festive Occasions

Art is a wonderful way to add colour, style and statement to our surroundings

Festivals are an ideal time for family and friends to get together and celebrate the occasion and to take the opportunity to reiterate lifelong bonds. Deepawali which is celebrated across the country with great enthusiasm and joy is a festival which mandates spring cleaning and decorating home interiors on an extensive scale. It offers immense possibilities to unleash your creativity and decorate interiors innovatively.

Art is a wonderful way to add colour, style and statement to our surroundings. Colours and moods are interlinked and it is a well-known fact that bright vibrant colours which symbolize energy and vigor are uplifting and help in creating a spirit of celebration. Also, colours that are used symbolically in our tradition and culture as part of rituals and ceremonies, such as ochre, vermilion and rust should be used generously to reaffirm the festive spirit. This would be a good time to choose paintings which reflect not only these colours but are also celebratory in nature.

Conventionally, paintings are the most popular form of artworks that are displayed in homes and it is common to have a large painting placed over a central seating area and it works well in most interior spaces. During the festive season it would be a good idea to display paintings which focus on traditional and ethnic themes. These can be put up as a set or singly if they are large.

In addition, there are several other options apart from just traditional ones which can also be used to create a unique and different look. Displaying art in the form of accessories is also a wonderful way to enhance your surroundings. For instance, having paintings or sketches on functional and utilitarian accessories such has chairs, cushion covers, coasters, coffee mugs, decorative wooden boxes and so on not only make these functional items colourful but also very dramatic. A single large piece of furniture such as a chair or a table can be hand painted by a professional artist to turn it into a conversation piece. This may be slightly expensive but if you look around you should be able to find an upcoming artist or a student who can do this in a more affordable manner. And, in case you are artistically inclined you could always try painting it yourself, but do experiment on a smaller and less expensive piece first. For a larger number of collectable items, a screen-printed option which has been done professionally works much better.

These days, it is common to have a wall as an accent by painting it in another colour and by using textures to enhance its mundane appearance, instead you can have a wall accentuated by having it painted by an artist. Here you can either have a contemporary look or opt for an ethnic or traditional finish by getting it painted by a folk artist. An abstract sketch or a colorful mosaic will look fabulous in a contemporary décor, while Madhubani, Pithora, Worli or any other folk or tribal art can make a huge difference to the ambience. Both these options are worth exploring and are sure to make your décor stand out.

Festivals are also a great time to display traditional figurines, antique paintings and other artifacts which are either hand painted or customized. The important thing is to be creative in your display and choose artifacts with care to ensure a festive air prevails.

Images courtesy Bipasha Sen Gupta, Mahirwan Mamtani, Sanghita Das and Aham Bhumika

This article was published earlier in The Times of India-Property, Bangalore

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Studio Visit: Milind Nayak

Studio visits offer fresh insights into the process of art making.

This week’s post is an informal update on my visit to artist Milind Nayak’s studio. Milind, who is recovering remarkably well from a recent health scare, is back at his easel and doing what he does best - paint these amazing landscapes! Right now, he’s working on a new series, where he explores the ‘ripple’ effect, both literally and metaphorically. But, more on that some other time. Some of the large canvasses are truly spectacular and I look forward to seeing them on gallery walls soon.

We talked about various things as we looked at his early works – some from the 1970s, when he was closely associated with the veteran artist GS Shenoy, who is no more. It’s always fascinating to revisit old works and see the kind of influences that existed at the time, and then to observe how the evolution occurs, and changes in form, colours and textures take place organically over the years.

Studio visits are always exciting and give greater awareness about an artist’s work, not only is one listening to the artist’s words and his/her interpretations, but one also gets insights into the process of art production.

Also read,

• INTERVIEW: Artist Atul Dodiya
• INTERVIEW: Artist NS Harsha
• INTERVIEW: Artist SG Vasudev

Art News: Multiple Visages - Narratives of Existence

INVITATION | ANANYA DRISHYA | BHARATI SAGAR & MRIDUL CHANDRA | MODERATED BY NALINI MALAVIYA | 27 SEPTEMBER, 6PM | VENKATAPPA ART GALLERY

 

Multiple Visages: Narratives of Existence

In the depth of my soul there is
A wordless song - a song that lives
In the seed of my heart

- Khalil Gibran

A million slivers of life exist around us - in the numerous stories that await discovery.  Stories of joy, celebration, sorrow and grief. Of ordinary people and their daily lives. Stories that resonate and stay with us and which alter our reality as we reflect and assimilate. Reinvented and retold, these emerge as wordless songs on canvas narrating multiple visages of life, and existence. Bharati Sagar and Mridul Chandra draw inspiration from everyday life and capture these vignettes in their paintings. 

About

Bharati Sagar learnt Commercial Art by correspondence from the British Institute, Mumbai at the tender age of 13 and then studied fine arts at The Fine Arts and Architecture College, Hydrabad. She also learnt Ceramics at The Lalit Kala Academy –Kolkata. She is well versed in landscape painting especially seascapes, has dabbled in
abstract art though she is better known for her sensitive portrayal of women and children.
Bharati has had solo shows and participated in several group shows in metros in India and abroad for more than 3 decades. Her most recent shows were in New York - 2012 and 2014 at a group show, where two of her works were projected on the buildings around Time Square-NY. In 2013, 10 of her paintings were projected on big screens at a gallery in Miami. 

Mridul Chandra graduated from the JJ School of Art (Mumbai) in 1978. She worked with the Sharat Das Consortium (architects for Indraprastha Stadium, Delhi Asiad 1982) and designed furniture and interiors for the stadium. She pursued graphics for a while, before getting into fine arts on a full time basis and has taught I.B. Art to the students of Canadian International School, Bangalore.
She derives inspiration for her works from travel, allowing her to juxtapose various scenes in a figurative format with textured backgrounds. The scenes narrate the reality of what she observes during her travels: migrant worker, laundry man, chai shop, teeming cities and towns – the pageant of the human being in an urban context, thus communicating her insights. Portraiture is her favourite medium and her compositions have a sense of celebration and renewal. 

Nalini Malaviya is a Bangalore based art consultant, writer and blogger. She has been writing for the media since 2003, and has been an art columnist for Financial Times (Delhi and Bangalore) and Bangalore Mirror. She has contributed to Times of India, Femina and several other publications including art magazines and catalogs. An occasional fiction writer, Nalini has published short stories as part of various anthologies. She also curates shows and conducts workshops for artists. 

Nalini runs www.artsceneindia.com, a popular blog cum Ezine featuring art news, events and articles. The website functions as an artist resource and also promotes artists. Currently, she is working on creating an eBook from her published articles.

Art News: Art for Social Change

Bangalore based artist P. Mahesh Kumar is participating in ArtPrize, an international art competition in Grand Rapids, Michigan to be held between Sep 24 - Oct 12, 2014. His painting titled A Girl's Freedom will be exhibited at Fountain Street Church - one of the top 5 venues to host the ArtPrize event under the theme "Art to Change the World: Inspiring Social Justice”. Artworks ‘will be judged by their ability to communicate human rights issues and on the quality of artistic expression’.

ArtPrize is described as an ‘unorthodox, highly disruptive, and undeniably intriguing to the art world and the public alike’. According to the ArtPrize website, ‘For 19 days, three square miles of downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan, become an open playing field where anyone can find a voice in the conversation about what is art and why it matters. Art from around the world pops up in every inch of downtown, and it’s all free and open to the public’.

The event is not curated and is open to all artists of any background from anywhere in the world. Involving huge prize money and multiple prizes, the method of choosing the prize winner has been compared to the popular reality show American Idol.

Mahesh Kumar’s painting focuses on gender related issues and deals with social evils such as female infanticide, domestic violence and crimes against women. The artwork is an attempt to portray hopes and aspirations of millions of Indian women and to draw attention to multiple challenges faced by them in their daily life. The painting raises a highly relevant issue and we hope the effort finds appreciation with the audience at the ArtPrize exhibition.

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Liu Bolin Brings 'Hiding in the City' to Bangalore

I met artist Liu Bolin from China in the parking lot of UB city, Bangalore as he wrapped up the photo shoot involving auto drivers. Bolin widely known as ‘The Invisible Man’ thanks to the popularity of his series ‘Hiding in the City’ was in Bangalore recently to participate in ‘Art Bengaluru 2014’.

One of his works, an installation from the Charger Series made out of mobile charges was exhibited as part of the 10-day event. Human forms appear to be suspended from the wall with innumerable wires dangling from them. Bolin's artwork is a comment on the materialist culture that now pervades every society, feeding an unending well of desire. It is making the human race more machine like, as we trade humane qualities for inanimate objects. During the inaugural evening of Art Bengaluru, Bolin also performed and ‘disappeared’ into a bookshelf, even as the people watched!

‘In 2006 Liu Bolin, a prominent Chinese contemporary artist inspired by the Chinese government’s demolition of the Suo Jia Cun Artist Village in Beijing camouflaged himself in the series of photographs, Hiding in the City by painting himself as part of the urban landscape. Bolin has become famous as the invisible man after he decided to use his art as a means of silent protest. Using his own body to paint himself and merge into various urban settings in Beijing, Bolin attempts to comment on the fragile status of artists and their living conditions’(excerpted from Protest Art in China by Nalini S Malaviya, Art Etc.)

Bolin seemed to have enjoyed his first visit to India and found a lot of similarities between the people here and in China. During his brief stay in Bangalore, Bolin continued to work with the idea of camouflage to highlight social issues and ‘imbalances’ peculiar to the societal and cultural landscape of India and particularly Bangalore. As an extension of ‘Hiding in the City’, Bolin worked with slum dwellers, school children and auto drivers to underline problems specific to each of these groups. For instance, the blue coloured canvas tents of the slums in Marathahalli stand conspicuous against high-rise buildings and highlight the enormous disparity between the rich and poor. According to Bolin, “The purpose of this shoot was to blend these people into their background, at the same time emphasizing their presence by making them the subject of the work. The idea was to draw attention to them and give a wake up call to the more privileged members of society to come forward to do their bit to help give these people a better future.”

In his other photoshoot with children, Bolin worked with an important and highly relevant issue that has assumed epidemic proportions in India - crimes against women and children. Performed in a playground, a single girl child was camouflaged as she disappeared into the background to become invisible, while other children around her continued to play and enjoy their activities. The world around her went on with its routine, oblivious to her and her plight - which unfortunately is the reality today! In his  last photoshoot, Bolin created an artwork with 10 auto drivers - an attempt to highlight ‘perpetual traffic issues and subsequent smoke and pollution inflicting the city’. Incidentally, Bangalore is amongst the most polluted mega cities in the world!

It was great to meet Bolin and even though communication was a little stilted (through a translator), it was heartening to see that he had managed to capture the pulse of Bangalore in his artworks. He mentioned that although there was initial resistance from participants to get painted and be a part of his performance art, the idea did grow on them and they were eventually quite enthusiastic to become the living artworks!

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