19 Apr 2023

Reimagining Nature: Poetics of Viewing by Anil Annaiah

Cotton Candy by Anil Annaiah

Bangalore based filmmaker, writer, photographer and storyteller Anil Anaiah has been passionately rooting for nature for several decades now. His upcoming exhibition of photographs and short films have been curated by me, and will be on view from 21st - 23rd April 2023 at Devaraj Urs Gallery, Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath Bengaluru.

While appearing to be nature photographs at the first instance, all images have been taken with a purpose. The idea behind it is to reveal details which are invisible to the naked eye and to encourage everyone to really observe and engage with nature in order to take further action that can support and conserve the natural world around us.

Anil's artistic projects have centered around ‘nature is art’ where he encourages positive actions that are aligned with the Sustainable Development (SDGs), through artworks which include photographs, documentaries, videos and also a citizen science initiative. In the past, he has also contributed towards socially relevant campaigns around autism and waste management.

The upcoming exhibition 'Reimagining Nature: Poetics of Viewing' coincides with Earth Day 2023, and is a celebration of Anil’s decade long journey, where he has presented his collection of nature photographs and films in a public exhibition on every Earth Day, since 2014.

The collection features early photographic works that are based on macro-photography and capture stunning magnified views of flora and foliage, offering deeper insights into the aesthetics and science of natural elements. While later works depict blurred or defocused images which appear to be abstracted paintings. The short films are conceptual and capture moving images with textual overlay as ‘thought quotes’ broadly referring to ‘Invest in our planet’, the official theme for this Earth Day, and as a call for action.

Anil believes that simple acts of observation can make one curious to know more about nature and thus act responsibly and discover their inner reflections as Changemakers. With even simple mobile phones one can take photographs and express their creativity and be a part of the changemaker movement. He will also be exhibiting a collection of photographs that has been shot on the iPhone and are exquisitely detailed.

He elaborates, “Biodiversity loss and Climate Change are the greatest issues we face today. And, you can play an active role in its mitigation by participating in our Art, Storytelling and Citizen Science Experience."

The Pink River by Anil Annaiah

About Anil Annaiah

His work from the last two decades has been about conceiving and contributing to diverse assignments as a photographer, creative strategist, writer & filmmaker. He aspires to bridge the gap between the two worlds he works with, the Corporate and the Social Development sector and offer a powerful synergy to build social goodness with communication ideas.

Anil is passionate about developing ideas for creative engagements to build new Changemakers. He continuously explores possibilities to build participative platforms for social sustainability. His diverse experience & collective knowledge from the last two decades, lends him rich communications expertise.

His concept of “Nature is Art for Conservation” with “Discovering Science Through The Lens” presents an innovative Art & Citizen Science Experience Project. This invites people to fall in love with nature all over again and discover their inner reflections as Changemakers. “Art, Nature, Science and You (ANSY)”. The joy of holding a Camera and the endless moments of peace you can soak yourself in gives you the opportunity to do Camera Yoga. This Earth Day 2023 brings in the 10th Consecutive Year.

About the Curator

Nalini S Malaviya is a Bangalore based curator and writer. In addition to curating contemporary art exhibitions, she offers curatorial and advisory services to individuals and corporate, facilitating art acquisition. She has been writing for the media since 2003, and has been an art columnist for leading newspapers. She has contributed to Financial Times, Times of India, Bangalore Mirror, Deccan Herald, several art magazines and artist books, among other publications. She contributed ‘An Art Sojourn’, an essay on Yusuf Arakkal, which was translated in Kannada and published as a chapter in the artist book.

Nalini is the Founder/Publisher of Art Scene India, www.artsceneindia.com, which was established in 2006 as a blog, and which has evolved into a significant resource site and a digital archive, with extensive documentation of the Indian art scene over the last 16 years.

Some of her curatorial projects include the recently concluded solo artist project ‘Interwoven’, an exhibition of tapestries and drawings by senior artist SG Vasudev, ‘Enchanted Breath’, ‘Convergence,’ ‘Bend’, ‘Parallax of Visual Memories’, ‘Reimagining: (Un)Reality and Space’, 'Irreverent Gene' and ‘Polynomials of Relevance’ with leading contemporary artists from across the country.

Reimagining Nature: Poetics of Viewing by Anil Annaiah, curated by Nalini S Malaviya

To coincide with Earth Day 2023, the exhibition ‘Reimagining Nature: Poetics of Viewing’ by Anil Annaiah features a collection of Fine Art Photographs and Short Films from 2014 to 2023, curated by Nalini S Malaviya

Exhibition details: 21st, 22nd & 23rd April 2023 at Devaraj Urs Gallery, Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath Bengaluru

Contact Anil Annaiah: Email: anilannaiah@yahoo.com, Ph: 99807 40118

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15 Mar 2023

Art News: Wilderness Escapades by Krish Iyer

Reconnecting with the past

Bangalore based artist Krish Iyer presents his recent suite of paintings that reimagine sculptures of Khajuraho temples, which decades ago, had set him on a path of creative expression. Iyer revisited the site recently, which is located in a densely forested region, rich in natural flora and fauna. In the temple art and architecture with its iconographic symbolism and its philosophical and spiritual moorings, Iyer has found a way to reconnect with the past, and re-envision it in his art, in a contemporary context.

Abstract painting 1 by Krish Iyer, Art Scene India

Painting by Krish Iyer

The large format paintings in ‘Wilderness Escapades’ reference these sculptures and the underlying premises, to create a spatial interplay of light, colour and texture to suggest the form, postures and gestures of the stone statues in a quasi-representational style. The artist’s interpretations are moored around the historicity of the temples, their geography - located as it is amidst forested land and wilderness, with their beauty and splendor remaining undiscovered for centuries. And, their subsequent desecration by invaders, all of which weave an intriguing narrative of mystery and mystique, of magnificence and ruin, of worldwide fame and remoteness. The art and architecture of the Khajuraho temples combined with their religious, cultural and historical significance form an intrinsic part of their allure. Numerous stories, philosophies and other intangibles lie beneath the surface of the stones, creating sagas of seduction, lure and enigma.

Krish’s canvases explore these histories, the abstracted notions of human potential, philosophies of living, corporeality of the flesh and temporality of life. The visual semantics are anchored in formal aesthetics, with defined line drawings marking the canvas, while the abstract expressionist approach at later stages lends critical layers of texture, and simultaneously recontextualizes historical content.

Painting by Krish Iyer

The tactile surface of the works emerges from heavy textures, layers of dripping paint, and several applications of thick acrylic paint using the impasto technique. The palette knife and other tools transform the canvas, to add depth and dimension, to strip off extraneity and to emphasize salient features of the physical form. Transcendence, man and nature (re)union, the cycle of life and rebirth, and joy of living are some of the key principles that are depicted at Khajuraho temples, and it is these that Krish seeks and attempts to portray in his works. The deliberate obliteration of details in the figures, and the structurally accurate forms that replicate their defiled state, are incandescent with the ironies of transience – both natural and as outcomes of anarchist interventions.

Despite the precision of line drawings that form the basis of the works, Iyer’s methodology is essentially non-mimetic. The gradual yet decidedly gestural transformation of the painting surface as a pictorial array of subconscious thoughts and patterns rescinds identifiable characteristics and accentuates the metaphorical import.

After a successful career in commercial art, Krish has returned to painting with this solo exhibition - to pursue subjects and themes that resonate with him. A chance encounter with the Khajuraho temples almost three decades ago, stayed with him through the years and a strange yearning drew him back to them recently. This series originated from the revisit, marked by an innate desire to reconnect with nature, and to allow subconscious thoughts and emotions to surface and transform on canvas. With this exhibition, Krish attempts to break the invisible shackles that have contained his creativity all these years and to realize his inner potential.

Nalini S Malaviya
Art Critic
March, 2023

- Catalogue text

The exhibition 'Wilderness Escapades' continues from March 20-26 at Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath, Bangalore. For further details contact 9900094466. Visit Wilderness Escapades (krishiyer.in)

28 Jan 2023

apexart International Open Call 2023-24

apexart International Open Call 2022 winning exhibition "Can you fuck it?" - The Fembot Phenomenon, curated by Amanda Knox - Tokyo 2022

apexart International Open Call 2023-24

Accepting proposals: February 1 - March 1, 2023

apexart will accept proposals for its International Open Call from February 1 - March 1, 2023. Four winning proposals will become apexart exhibitions presented in their selected locations around the world as part of their 2023-24 exhibition season. Curators, artists, writers, and creative individuals, regardless of location or past experience, are invited to submit a proposal online.

The submission process

Proposals of up to 500 words should describe focused, idea-driven, original group exhibitions, and the country and city in which they are to take place. No biographical information, CVs, links, or images will be accepted, and proposals must be submitted in English. Jurors rate anonymous submissions based on the idea only. See examples of winning proposals here.

The selection process

Rather than convene a panel of a few art world people to review hundreds of ideas, apexart’s crowd-sourced voting system invites hundreds of international jurors to review proposals on their own schedule. The crowd-sourced jury is composed of more than 600 individuals from a wide variety of professional backgrounds and international locations—including students from 17+ participating university classes—who will vote on the proposals. Proposals are anonymous and randomized to make sure each submission receives the same consideration. apexart staff does not influence the results of the jury in any way.

The results

The four winning proposals will each receive an exhibition budget of up to $11,000; have an exhibition brochure printed and mailed to over six thousand international recipients; advertising in major and local outlets; and will be part of apexart’s 2023-2024 exhibition season. Working closely with the apexart team, curators will realize their original ideas into apexart exhibitions. Exhibition curators are challenged, encouraged, and required to work within the funding provided to transform their winning proposals into small, focused, noteworthy exhibitions.

To submit an exhibition proposal, visit https://apexart.org/opencalls.php between February 1 and March 1, 2023.

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1 Dec 2022

Art News: India Art Festival in Bangalore

India Art Festival attracts over 30 galleries and 400 artists for its second edition in the city

The 2nd Edition of India Art Festival (IAF) in the city starting from December 08 – 11 at the Palace Ground, Kings Court, Gate No. 5, Bellary Road, has grown in scale and size this year, bringing cutting-edge contemporary art to the city, presented by over 30 Art Galleries and 400 artists, coming from 40 different cities across India, Singapore and USA.

Opening on December 08, the 2nd Bengaluru edition of IAF will bring all forms of artistic expressions in the art fair including painting, sculptures, photography, ceramics, installations, offering insights into current art trends in India and Asian diaspora.

India Art Festival, Bangalore, Image for Art Scene India

Aditiraje Bhonsle

Founded in 2011 by the publishers of Indian Contemporary Art Journal, IAF is the only art fair held annually in three metro cities and which has mounted 22 editions so far at Mumbai, New Delhi and Bengaluru.

Whether, it is a seasoned art collector, or a new art buyer who want to acquire the first piece of art, the India Art Festival with 4000 pieces of art across 100 booths, on display at the Palace Ground is a perfect place to fall in love with art. At IAF, the art collectors are spoilt for choices to choose from many mediums and styles - oil paintings, acrylics, water colour, original prints, installations, drawings in myriad styles dealing with varied subjects including landscapes, figurative, abstracts, cityscapes, seascapes, urban and rural scenarios, portraits, nudes, semi-nudes, religious art, traditional paintings, murals, warli art and many more.

The master artists displayed by the galleries include Sakti Burman, Yusuf Arakkal, Lalu Prasad Shaw, S G Vasudev, Laxman Aelay, Gurudas Shenoy, Laxma Goud, Jatin Das, Jogen Chowdhury, Manu Parekh, N S Harsha, P Gnana, Seema Kohli and many others.

Yusuf Arakkal

The Artists’ Pavilion with individual booths by independent artists is so designed as to create a dialogue between the viewers and the art maker, and the artist. It also encourages dialogue between the art market and the artists directly. Here the sale and purchase of the artwork is on an open platform and the buyer or collector can approach an artist and the choices are numerous.

Vinita Dasgupta

This kind of freedom is rarely possible as both the artist and the buyers benefit from this arrangement. India Art Festival Director Rajendra says, "the process of democratizing ‘art viewing and buying’ initiated twelve years ago in Mumbai sort of became a movement; the growing interest in Indian contemporary art slowly made this movement spread to New Delhi and Bengaluru covering significant length and breaths of our country."

Apart from 200 established artists exhibited by art galleries, more than 200 independent artists are displaying in the ‘Artists’ pavilion’ at the art festival. The subjects broached by the artists vary from personal experiences to intense narratives.

Dhyana Das

'Tripurasundari’, a feminine mystique of the goddess by artist Dhyana Das and Kalyani Ravishankar’s ‘Radha-Krishna’, both blend the nuances of classical paintings and contextualize them within Indian religious sensibilities.

In another instance, artist Karthik Kamath, Sonali Surana and Tejaswi depicts embodiment of renunciation, Buddha, the enlightened one in his splendid aura with wavy hair curls & the monastic robe covering both shoulders and arranged in heavy classical folds.

Sunitha Krishna, Smita BP, Kalyani Sinha and Tripti Pandey indulge in an artistic imagery using religious images, cultural symbols and motifs that touches the spiritual chord of the viewers.

Artists Gaurav Dagar, Jyothi Prakash and Prakash Bal Joshi beguile the viewers with their abstract composition using pure forms & colours, whereas artist Muthukrishnan Ramalingam and Rajitha Bonthala chose the middle path of semi-abstract idiom to present their visual stories.

Wildlife, animal and bird paintings is one of the oldest art forms found since ancient times in the cave art. Animal and bird art have come a long way since then in technique and imagination and occupies major part of the contemporary art space in India. Artist Isha Valentine’s symbolic deer with antlers, Priyanka Sehgal’s Sunbird, big cats and elephant by artist Apurba Das, Shakila Ananth and Sudha Anandampillai displayed in the art festival is a fusion of art elements found in Bundi style of traditional art with contemporary times.

Akshata Shetty

The black and white paintings displayed in the art festival by Akshata Shetty, Beena Surana, Om Thadkar, Preeti Baliga, and Priyanka Maurya prove that the paintings need not have to be always done in striking colours to create visual splendour! Viewers are bound to be mesmerize by the unfolding visual drama of muted blacks, ash greys, dark flashes, starry whites with harsh shadows employed in the work of Om Tadkar in his galloping white stallion, whereas Priyanka Mauraya’s dreamy flowery land and symbolic portraits of all sorts by Akshata Shetty and Preeti Baliga creates powerful viewing; these paintings can go with entire range of minimalist modern décor & interior to create aesthetic ambience around living spaces.

Since ancient times to modern times, from fertility goddess to modern-day multitasker, artists have always enjoyed exploring the subject matter of women folk in art. But when the subject is explored by female artists herself, it assumes different significance like artist Geeta Yerra, Parul Sharma and Swati Burde who are exhibiting in the art festival.

P Gnana

The figurative works by Ravi Verma and Vanita Gupta along with Atul Todi and Jayaram Krishna’s figures emerging through geometric patterns on closer look is an added in attraction for viewers.

The notion of beautiful and sublime with sharp contrasts of light and shadow is exemplified in the landscapes by Poornima Deepak and Reema Ravindran whereas Deepshikha Bishoyi, Mridul Garg, Pooja Muthuraj, Shankari Kundu, T V Sairam and Vidhu Pillai prefers suggestive style of abstract landscape which focuses more on expressing emotion while still capturing the essence of a landscape. Seena Mani’s cityscape, Aditiraje Bhonsle, and Kasturi Dutta’s flowerscape are different genre in landscape painting in the art festival that would leave a lasting impression on the viewers.

Among several others noticeable works by master artists, the artists pavilion present a fresh face of India Art Festival at the Garden city. India Art Festival, with mammoth art collection of all sorts of art under one roof is a one stop mega art jamboree for art enthusiasts in this week to enjoy art without getting tired in hopping around art paces in city!

The participating art galleries include Akanksha Art Gallery, Charvi Art Gallery, Green Footprint

Laxman Aelay

Art Gallery, H Art Gallery, Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath, Sara Arakkal Gallerie (all Bengaluru), ArtDesh Foundation, Artvista, House of Emerge, Nitya Artists Center, Studio Pankaj Bawdekar, Studio Rustgrey, Studio3 Art Gallery, The Bombay Art Society, thecurators.art (Mumbai) , ArteHut, Eminent Art Gallery, Gallery Pioneer, Nifa Art Gallery, Gallery Vision Art (New Delhi), Pastel Tale & Uchaan (Gurgaon), Gnani Arts (Singapore), Kalabhawan (Agartala), M Narayan Studio (Pune), Pichwai by Beyond Square (Udaipur) and Subodh Fine Art Studio (California, USA) among others.

India Art Festival will be on from 08 to 11 Dec 2022 at Kings Court, Palace Ground, Gate No.5, Bellary Road, Near Mekhri Circle, Bengaluru from 11 am- 8.30pm on all days.

For further details contact: 9820737692

Excerpted from the press release

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22 Nov 2022

Reminiscences by Bharathi S

Recollections: Traveling Through Time

Bangalore based artist Bharathi S. revisits her childhood through paintings that wistfully capture joie de vivre, of carefree days, gone by. The paintings in the new series, ‘Reminiscences’ evoke flashes of vivid memory, of youthful days and simpler times. The kaleidoscopic images depict a fervent memoire tinged with nostalgia and innocence, and of those past moments that were uncluttered and unencumbered from the urgency and stresses of urban life. The works are suggestive of the rich fragrance of imagination and the joy of untroubled days, where time was slower, and perhaps it even stood still, more so, in small towns and villages, where Bharathi grew up.

Her works are akin to photographic film negatives, albeit in color, where masses and forms coalesce and blur, in effortless motion. The colors, as patches of pigments, take shape from a distance, and dissolve once again on approaching closer. Most of the larger paintings have figures of children either playing or watching adults complete household chores – there is an inherent exuberance and dynamism with a heightened sense of motion that is evident. A safe, secluded world is quietly tangible.

An avid traveler, she has been fascinated by clouds – their patterns and how they shift form, disperse, and re-form at times to acquire newer shapes and outlines. Their temporal nature and their transitions, have impacted her perception, in her observations of life and events and their fleeting characteristics. This in turn has inspired the small format paintings, which rely on abstraction as a tool to convey the thematic subjects as they shift forms amidst the colors, and which reemphasize the subtleties of movement and transitions.

Nalini S Malaviya

Art Critic

- Excerpt from the catalogue essay

'Reminiscences' by Bharathi S. continues till Nov 27, at Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath, Bangalore