Artists Profiles; Shakti 08
Anjolie Ela Menon
She was born in 1940. She studied at the JJ school of Art in Bombay, earned a degree in English Literature from Delhi University and studied Fresco in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in 1961-62 on a French Government scholarship. She has had over forty five solo shows in India, America, Russia, Germany, Hong Kong, France and England. Her works have been acquired by several museums in India and abroad including the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, Benjamin Gray Museum, Peabody Essex Museum and the Asian Arts Museum in San Francisco. She has represented India at the Algiers Biennale, the SaoPaulo Biennale, and three Triennales in India. In 2002, a retrospective of her work was held at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai and subsequently in Bangalore, Chennai and Delhi. A book titled “ANJOLIE ELA MENON : Paintings in Private Collections” has been published on her life and work, a portfolio by the Lalit Kala Academy and films made on her for Doordarshan and CNN. She has been a trustee of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and served on the advisory committee and art purchase committee of the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.
Recently she was awarded the “Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” from the French Government. Currently, a six month solo show of her works is going on in the Asian Art Museum at San Francisco which is on till the end of December.
She has been given several awards including the PADMA SHREE, one of the highest honours in India. Married to well known strategic analyst and writer Admiral Raja Menon she has two sons and four grandchildren.
Few contemporary Indian artists have created a body of work of such beauty and depth as Anjolie Ela Menon over the last four decades. Her paintings reveal an extraordinary sensibility. The early paintings were characterized by a moodiness, profoundly influenced by Romanesque art. All the new experimentation is still characterized by the old masterish technique, reminiscent of Renaissance paintings, for which she is best known but endures as a parody of itself. Self-mockery and sly satire, tranquility and disturbance imbue her work with an aura of paradox that transcends the melancholic romanticism that appears to be an integral part of her persona.
Arpana Caur
Arpana Caur, distinguished Indian painter has been exhibited since 1974 across the globe. Her solos apart from Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta, Bangalore and Chennai have been held in galleries in London, Glasgow, Berlin, Amsterdam, Singapore, Munich, New York and in Stockholm and Copenhagen National Museum. Her work can be seen in Museums of Modern Art in Delhi, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Dusseldorf, Singapore, Bradford, Stockholm, Hiroshima, Smithsonian Washington & Victoria and Albert Museum London. She has been extensively written about filmed, invited to various countries and awarded, including a gold medal in VIth International Triennele 1986 in Delhi. She was commissioned by Hiroshima Museum of Modern Art to execute a large work for its permanent collection for the 50th anniversary of the Holocaust in 1995, and by Bangalore city and the city of Hamburg to do large noncommercial murals in public spaces. Since 1981 she did three large non-commercial murals in Delhi. Today her paintings support Shri Sahib ji’s ration projects for poor and old widows all over the country. She lives & works in Delhi.
Arpana’s concerns range from environment, time, life and death, violence and peace, spiritualism, Indians’ rich folk art and miniature traditions and their incorporation into her own work. While boldly addressing these concerns, her work retains a lyrical beauty and a spiritual viewpoint.
Anupam Sud
Anupam Sud was born in Hoshiarpur in Punjab in 1944. She studied at the College of Art, New Delhi in 1967 and in 1971-72 studied print-making at the Slade School, London, under a British Council scholarship. Working mainly with intaglio prints, Sud fuses her knowledge of different intaglio processes with lithography and screen-printing. She also grew as an artist under the guidance of Somnath Hore in Delhi, whose work she closely related to. Anupam's work has evolved in phases. From the rather architectural forms, limbs and human figures in the mid 1970s to largely feminist subjects in the late 1970s. Her work has been widely exhibited and appreciated. Apart from over a dozen solo shows all over the world, she has participated in many group exhibitions in cities in the US, UK, Italy, Korea, Switzerland and other countries. She has won numerous national and international awards for her excellence in printmaking. She has also conducted workshops in Canada and Japan. She lives and works in New Delhi.
At all times restraint seems to be the keynote of Anupam’s work. While her sympathies and concerns are often feminist, a recurring theme in her work is the common human predicament. Her subjects are often introspective and fatalistic - existing in a world that is falling apart. More metaphorical than direct, her work is different from that of traditional printmakers in that she does not rely on the monochromatic quality, inherent in this medium, to make a statement.
Angeli Sowani
Angeli Sowani grew up in India and graduated from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad in 1984. After leaving India in 1987 she has painted in Nepal, Thailand, Hong Kong and London where she now lives. Angeli has over a dozen solo shows and numerous group shows in galleries across the world to her credit with her latest show held at the Grosvenor-Vadehra Gallery in London. Her paintings are in numerous private and corporate collections across the world. She lives & works in London.
In these works, I am interested in the relationship dynamic of the short interaction between the subject on the wall and the viewer. My aim is to shake loose an emotional element in the viewer to capture what I tend to think of as the “roots and inner weaves" of the person – and the painter.
Chandana Hore
Chandana Hore was born in 1964 in New Delhi . She received her MFA from Kala Bhavan, Visva Bharati in 1987, after which she received The Lalit Kala Research Grant in Painting, 1988-89. Solo shows include those at Birla Academy of Art & Culture, 1991 and Heritage, 1994. She has been a part of Group Shows, some of which are Gallery 88, Kolkata 1994; Guild Gallery, Mumbai, 1998; Akar Prakar, Kolkata 2005; The Seagull Foundation for the Arts, 2005, among others. Born in New Delhi, she came to Santiniketan with her parents when she was all of three-and-a-half years old and her association with colours started in early childhood. “One of my greatest subconscious influences came from my mother putting me in a cot, and painting next to it. All I remember are bright colours,” says the 42-year-old artist whose current works have bright shades. Chandana lives and works in Kolkata and Santiniketan.
Chandana’s works have a wonderful equation with femininity. It is not in your face, neither a protest nor documentation. It is a cry against but, at the same time, an exercise in accepting the female body, sexuality and societal pressures.
Durga Kainthola
Durga Kainthola graduated from Sir. J. J. School of Art in Bombay and post-graduated at Maharaja Sayajirao University in Baroda, India. Her paintings have been exhibited throughout the past 20 years all over India and abroad. Her recent solo exhibition was held in Amsterdam and Hong Kong. One of her source for inspiration is the Pop Art movement of the 1950s in the US and UK. She explored a wider vision of the world where mass media, advertising and popular culture mingled with history, be it film, politics or soup cans. Kainthola has been described as “India’s answer to Andy Warhol”. She lives & works in Delhi.
Portraits tell stories. They capture and freeze moments in the past to form part of the present and show the way to the future. Self- portrait, portraits of artists, mythological characters and creative persons from diverse fields have never failed to fascinate me as an artist. For me, they define a kind of a visual diary that is not confined within limits of time, space or color but is a continuous process that grows along with my personal growth as an artist. I try to bring across a fusion of contemporary images and mythology. Calligraphy is an integral part of my portraits. I blend print and mixed media to explore the borders of both traditional and modern technology.
Eleena Banik
Eleena Banik is a young artist based in Kolkata. Her mentor was Prof. Jogen Chowdhuri from her student days at Santiniketan. She was also fortunate to get the guidance of Prof. Emeritus Somnath Hore, Ms. Reba Hore and Prof. K.G. Subramanian from time to time. She did her graduation (1995) and Post Graduation (1997) at Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan, of the Visva Bharati University. Later on she studied at the Glasgow School of Art, U.K (1998-99) with a Charles Wallace India Trust scholarship as a visiting MFA student during 1998-99. She also received the National Scholarship (1994-97) and Junior Fellowship (1997-99) from the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Department of Culture, Government of India during her academic years. Until now she has received some awards including the President of India’s Silver Plaque (1996) and the Governor’s Gold Medal (1996) from the Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata. She did 23 solo exhibitions in different cities of India and abroad including New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and London, Glasgow, Moscow etc. Lives and works in Kolkata.
A restless, effusive and prolific artist in search of some indefinable goal, Eleena Banik seems to wear her heart and her art on her sleeves. Always in a hurry, this spirited young woman is unconventional with a mind of her own and seems confident enough to try out every possible material, medium, technique or idea that comes her way. Still in her thirties, she has already covered much ground with a considerable body of work to her credit and comments to offer on most issues of current interest ranging from violence to environment, while feminist concerns and sexuality continue to be the undercurrents for much of her distinct work.
Hemavathy Guha
Hema had her fine art education from the college of arts and crafts, Chennai and then shifted to Delhi. She joined the Garhi artists studios in 1987 and has been pursuing her art activities ever since. She has held twelve one women exhibitions in several parts of India and also participated in several National and International exhibitions of prestige. Important among them are the National Exhibitions of art, Lalit Kala Akademi, Annual exhibitions of AIFACS, Sahityakala Parishad exhibitions and several privately organized exhibitions. At international level, she has participated in the 20th international biennale of graphic art, Slovenia, International biennale of graphic art, Bitola, International Biennale of graphic art, Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal. Her works are in the collection of Lalit kala akademi,NGMA,New Delhi and International Print Museums.At present she works in Painting studios of Garhi artist’s studios,New Delhi.
Hemavathy works in the mediums of both oil and acrylic paintings. Stylised figures of humans and animals play a major part in her works although other elements also creep into often. The theme of the works is global while the technique applied is taken from Indian folk arts. The work titled ‘Cloth Line’ makes light of the Indian way of drying the clothes exposing the hypocrisy. It also brings out the amount of washing Indian women have to do day in and day out. The work titled ‘Chatteratti’ is a satire on the social gatherings.
Gogi Saroj Pal
Gogi Saroj Pal was born in Neoli, UP in 1945. Post Graduate Diploma in Painting, College of Art, New Delhi. From 1969, Gogi Saroj Pal has been showing regularly and participating in artists' workshops, and camps. In 1969 she worked as a designer in Okhla Design Research Centre, New Delhi. In 1987 she received the Jury’s Commendation Certificate, First International Biennale of Plastic Arts, Algeria. Gogi works in different media - installation, painting, sculpture, graphic print, ceramics, jewelry, weaving, photography & computer to achieve creativity. Since 1965, she has organized 26 solo exhibitions of her works, participated in 28 International Exhibitions abroad and more than 70 group exhibitions in India. Lives and works in New Delhi.
Gogi’s life and her cultural identity carve the directions of her expression. Inspirations for expression emerge around and within herself. She wants her creative concerns to be relevant to her times, imbibing local, regional and universal consciousness. She expresses these in her own creative visual imagery, evolving and creating creative visual symbols, icons as references of our times. She thinks in colour and achieves sthai bhava to accomplish creativity in her paintings.
Jayasri Burman
Born Kolkata, 1960, Jayasri studied at Kala Bhawan, Santiniketan; Visual College of Art, Kolkata & guidance in print making under Monsieur Ceizerzi, France. Her solo exhibitions include Chitrakoot Gallery, Kolkata, 1985, 90, 92, 96; Pundole, Mumbai, 1992; Gallerie Ganesha, Delhi, 1997, 99, 2000, 04; Gallery Sumukha, 2002, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, 2004; ArtsIndia West, Palo Alto, 2005. Participated in -1984, Three Person Exhibition at Paris & Worked in the Graphic Art Workshop skippered by Paul Lingren; 1983-85, National Exhibition at the Lalit Kala Akademi; 1985, Worked in the Graphic Arts Workshop skippered by Prof. Krishna Reddy at the Lalit Kala Akademi, Kolkata; 1985, Bharat Bhavan Biennial, Bhopal; 1985, International Triennale, Intergraphic, Germany; 1989, An Exhibition of Five Women Artists to Commemorate 300 years of Kolkata; 'A Tribute to Vincent Van Gogh', Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi; 1996, 'Urban Signals Shifting Images - II', Birla Academy of Art & Culture, Mumbai; 2001, Indian Contemporary, Hongkong, India Contemporary Fine Art, Los Angeles 2C Saffron Art Online, 2002; Group show with Modi Foundation, London, Bollywood show at London Selfindges, 'The Family-3' with Sakti Burman, Maya Burman, 2002 at Apparao Galleries; 2003, Workshop in Egypt with Indian Contemporary Artists by BAYAR ABS; ClMA Art Gallery, Brahma to Bapu, Annual Show, Kolkata; 2004, Visual Art, London, ‘Revert to Nucleus – Women on Women, and Weaving Legacy V, both by Indian Art Circle, New Delhi. Won the 1985 National Award. Lives and works in New Delhi.
Jayasri Burman’s work is infused with the recurring evocative themes of man & animals, fantasy and imagery, myths legends and old texts. Drawing from the folk, and evolving her unique talent, Jayasri’s increasing boldness and sophistication of work is at once mature and retains an alluring naiveté. Without calling herself feminist, she confesses her desire to see her women content in partaking in the bounties of life. Free, and at one with Nature, her woman is sometimes a coronated ceremonial bird, and at others, a mother Goddess or a creature of the woods.
Latika Katt
Lalita currently heads the Department of Fine Arts & Art Education at Jamia Millia Islamia University, Delhi. She has had solo and joint exhibitions in India and abroad and is recognized as one of India's leading artists. Latika studied art in India and abroad and has also exhibited in India and many other countries. Honoured and awarded by the Lalit Kala Akademi and the Academy of Fine Arts, Calcutta, among others, Katt has travelled across the world on account of her art camps, talks and other symposia. Not only has she been a part of the administration of premier art and culture institutes, she has also had a long teaching career. Her work features in collections in the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai and the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, among others. She lives & works in Delhi.
In the early works of Latika Katt, the dematerialized materialization is very prominent. It also raises questions on the visual and the illusionist, the real and the imaginary. Latika's works mainly represent her ideology of space and her space, it questions and contradicts the norms of the world and revolves around the true being. The sculpture strategy in the 'Decay and Growth' series of her works deals with mainly with the decay of mass correlating the paradoxical position. Abstraction from matter leads into matter. Latika's mode of reaching out to touching and modeling involves the pushing, digging, stretching scribbling and anything through which she can leave a mark of her identity. The intention of the artist is to create a multi-dimensional, imaginative world that goes far beyond the obvious.
Mimi Radhakrishnan
Mimi was born in 1955 in Calcutta. She did her BFA in Print making from Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan, Viswa Bharati University and an MFA in Print making from M.S University, Baroda. Participated in Indian and International shows including
National Exhibition, New Delhi, Paul Lingren Intaglio workshop, New Delhi, Charles Stroh Lithography workshop, Udaipur, Bharat Bhavan Biennale, Bhopal 2006 Print making workshop, Mauritius, Workshop, Arts India, New York. She was awarded the 1980 State Lalit Kala Academi award, Gujarat & Chandigarh,
the Chitra Kala Parishad, Bangalore, Research Grant, Lalit Kala Academi, New Delhi, Fellowship to the outstanding artists, & Senior Fellowship to the outstanding artists, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. Her work is in various private collections in India and abroad. She lives & works in Delhi.
Nayanaa Kanodia
Nayanaa Kanodia was born in Pune in 1950.She graduated from Lady Shri Ram College in Economics (Honours) winning the National Scholarship of the Govt. of India. An economist turned painter, she is a self taught artist. She had her first solo show in 1986 in Mumbai and has held numerous solo exhibitions since then in India and abroad. In 1998, she was selected by The Commonwealth Institute from all the artists of the Commonwealth Countries for a solo show in their recently renovated complex in London. In 2001 she was invited by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London to exhibit her paintings and to give a demonstration of her painting techniques. She has also participated in many group shows nationally and internationally including the ones in New York in 1988, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai in 1997 and 1998, Dubai in 1998, London in 2001, 2002 and 2006,Centre Regional D’Art Contemporain’,Sete, France in 2001, Washington in 2001, Paris in 2002, Hong Kong in 2005,Singapore in 2006, The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo in 2007,Johanesburg, South Africa in 2007. Nayanaa’s works are held in many public and private collections in India and abroad including the Musee International d’Art Naïve, Paris. She lives & works in Mumbai.
A picture of the moment is built up in which whole histories and relationships are made visible. Nayanaa’s paintings are moments of pleasure held forever. They are about time and time in paintings is movement stilled. There is a sense of fun that is sometimes picturesque, that verges hesitantly on the erotic, but excels in the shrewd, tongue – in- cheek observation of individual psychology and the customs and manners of groups.
Navjot Altaf
Born Dec.15 –1949 –Meerut, Navjot studied Fine and Applied Arts –1967-1972-Sir J. J. School of Arts, Mumbai. Graphics – 1981-Garhi studios, Delhi. Navjot has been working since 1973. She has had number of solo and joint exhibitions in India, Germany and New York and has been invited to participate in major national and international exhibitions, which include, ‘Zeitgenoessische Indische Kunst’ Werl, Germany’- 1977 and 1985, ’Male Formy graphiki ’Polska -1984-85 , ‘Stri’-Festival of India, U.S.S.R –1987 ,‘Third Painting Biennale’, Bhopal-1988, ‘VIIIth International Triennale’, New Delhi-1991,’State Of The Arts’. Bombay, Delhi, Bangalore and Madras -1992, ‘Women Artists from India’, Middlesbrough Art Gallery U.K.-1995-96 . ‘Women Artists of India’ Mills College Art Gallery, California, U.S.A and ‘Cross Currents’, Women Artists from India, Britain and Norway Oslo and four other cities in Norway- 1997, ‘The Presence Of The Past’, Bombay –1998,’ ‘First Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale’, Japan –1999, ‘Century City’, Tate Modern London –2001, ’BBK Kunst Forum’, Duesseldorf , Germany –2001, ’An Aesthetic Experience,’Baroda and Bombay – 2002, - ‘In Response To’, Talwar Gallery, New York – 2003, ‘Three Halves’, Liverpool, Bombay, Bolton, Lancashire, U.K. – 2003-2004, ‘Displaced Self’, Bombay -2003, Eigth Hawana Biennale, Cuba –2003. ‘SubTerrain’Indian Contemporary Art, House Of World Culture, Berlin –2003, ‘ZOOM – ART IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA’, Edificia Sede da Caixo Garal de Depositos, Lisbon and ‘ PASSAGE TO INDIA’, GENEVA –2004. Ground works Carnegie Mellon University, (RMG) Pittsburgh, U.S.A (2005) Zones Of Contact, 15th Sydney Biennale, Australia (2006) Avatars of the Object: Sculptural Projections, Mumbai (2006)Bombay Maximum City, Lille, France (2006) Public places Private Spaces ,Newark Museum and Tiger By the Tail –Contemporary Indian Women Transforming Culture –Brandies Museum Boston, U.S.A. (2007)Mechanisms of Motion, Anant Gallery, Delhi,(2008). Navjot has participated in artist’s workshops and residencies and has presented papers in seminars on art, in India, Japan, Indonesia, U.K. AND U.S.A. She lives & works in Mumbai.
Since 1991/1992 N a v j o t has been engaged with interactive / cooperative / collaborative projects with Indian and international visual artists, classical vocalists, documentary filmmakers, craftspersons and technicians. Simultaneously, since 1997 she has been engaged with ongoing ‘site specific / public art projects’ in collaboration with Adivasi artists/ communities from Bastar, Central India. The process deals with the questions related to interactive /collaborative art.
Nupur Kundu
A graduate from the College of Art, New Delhi, Nupur Kundu simultaneously pursued her love for dance by doing Sangeet Bhaskar in Indian Classical Dance. Nupur has to her credit numerous group exhibitions and major auction participations over the last decade in India and abroad. Major solo exhibitions include: 2007 “The Furious Purity”, Sumukha Art Gallery, Bangalore; 2005/2003 “Rhapsody in Space I and II”, Visual Art Gallery, India Habitat Centre by Art Alive Gallery, New Delhi ; and 1999 At Art Indus, Santushti Complex, New Delhi. Her recent Commissions include a series of 75 Oil on Canvas for Trident Oberoi, Mumbai, 2006 and three commission works for TAJ GVK hotel (Chandigarh) in 2005. She has also been featured in India Today Magazines 30th Anniversary Issue among 30 young successful achievers turning thirty. An active participant in workshops, Nupur has also worked closely with mentally challenged & autistic children. The artist works and lives at New Delhi.
Even though young, Nupur has chosen to explore in her vibrant act the unknown. She endeavors to embody in her work the ineffable in colors. The colors are given freedom to flow, move, and dialogue with each other, share inaudibly and even invisibly the mystery of their being. These paintings are, first and foremost, colourscapes. Their structure emerges through intense interplay of colors, layers, shapes, spaces etc and they move towards their uniqueness. They move between the color polarities of white and back. They invite you to invest your own meanings if you want. Otherwise, they are free color-scapes; free in them selves and leaving you free to see, feel and imagine them in equal freedom..
Ratnabali Kant
Ratnabali Kant is a thought-provoking artist, all through her life, as an artist, she has been responding to great human issues, social issues, violence to women and children. Her creative talent extends to Painting, Sculpture, Dance,Theatre and Video Films. Ratnabali was born in 1956, graduated in fine arts from Santiniketan, post graduated from M.S.University, Baroda and did doctoral research from Athens University, Greece. She has been working as a freelance artist for the last three decades. Ratnabali got training in classical dances from great gurus before she joined the fine arts department in Santiniketan. Ratnabali Kant’s most noteworthy contribution to contemporary Indian Art is ‘Installation Performance’, supported by the Indian aesthetic concept of inter-relationship of arts. In this form she explores the country’s living traditions like rituals, ceremonies, festivals etc., which introduced new ideas and inspired the new generation of visual as well as performing artists. One may call her a painter, or a sculptor, or a performing artist - she is a holistic visual artist. Ratnabali Kant lives and works in Delhi.
Ratnabali has been presenting her themes mostly in symbolic manner, fighting against the violence, and other odds, prevalent in our society. But she has also offered to explore for ourselves, and even, and even create for ourselves, the dreams one would like to cherish and posses.
Rini Dhumal
Rini Dhumal was born in 1948 in West Bengal, India and is considered one of the country’s leading artists. She did an M.A. Fine Arts (Painting), M.S. University, Baroda in 1972. She has had several solo and group shows both in India and abroad and is internationally recognized. She is a painter/ printmaker and teaching at the faculty of Fine Arts since 1984. The handling of multimedia has given her the flexibility in manipulating the potential of each of them. There is an organic interplay of energy between figures, objects and space. Each medium speaks its own language and expresses a significant expression within the frame through colour and line and the transparent psyche. She lives, paints, sculpts and also teaches now in the city of Baroda, Gujarat, after having studied in Bengal and Paris.
Rini assesses self-experiencing moments of awareness – dramatizing, fantasizing, remembering and occasionally re-inventing significant imagery in her continuing path towards what could be construed as a journey of self-discovery. Rini’s subjects are invariably women, like the mixed media on canvas “Queen”, or the depiction of the awesome Hindu Goddess Durga in the same medium; these memory-ripened, inward looking images appear deeply personal and lend an emotional climate of introspection. Then there are the bold use of fantasy and imagination, as in “Creature”. Rini’s women are usually center-stage and flanked by strange looking cats or birds, or dramatic flowers and assorted plumage. For Rini’s audience, her paintings succeed in opening a door to less bleak image of art, and life itself.
S. Ayesha
My name is Ayesha. I am 27 and am proud to be a woman, be Indian and be invited to participate in this show. My adventure as a graphic artist is just beginning. I don’t paint. I use Photoshop, fractals, digital photographs, commercial packaging, internet, transparencies, projectors, holographic & Japanese papers, acrylic plexiglass and other new media & technologies to create large collages that reflect the different aspects of my life and the different faces I carry. In essence, these are all self-portraits. Ayesha lives & works in Delhi.
I like colour. I like hidden messages. I like butterflies. I like matchboxes. I like lotuses, I like numerology & repetition, I love to create chaos. Then, I use lines & symmetry to give order. Finally, I add patterns for movement. I use icons that inspire me and I am aware of the different Gods & Goddesses that live inside me.
Sapna Sharma
Sapna Sharma was born in 1965 in Udaipur. Sapna completed her art education Mohan Lal Sukhadia University, Udaipur, Rajasthan. Sapna won a national scholarship from 1989 to 1990 by Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi . She got Junior Fellowship by Ministry of Human Resource Development 1999. She has won the Rajasthan State Artist award by Rajasthan Lalit Kala Akademi, Jaipur in 1990, 92 & 94. Also a recipient of Maharaja Raj Singh Award, Udaipur & Prime Minister Award in poster competition, New Delhi, 1987. Some of her solo shows have been with Triveni Art Gallery, New Delhi in 1993, Taj art Gallery, Bombay in 1994, Art Konsult, New Delhi, in 1995, Lalit Kala Academy Art Gallery, New Delhi in 1996 and in Krishna’s collection Art Gallery, New Delhi, in 2007. Sapna works in many mediums but finds that she enjoys the flexibility provided by mixed media. Her subjects are rooted in the life around, people, the environment.. Her visual idiom is highly stylized. Her works are in various collection in India and abroad including the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, India. The artist lives and works in New Delhi.
The work exuberates the need to refer back to the historic, and finding its place in the present global, giving the artwork and the art community a platform for discussion on the very meaning of the word Indian-ness. Sapna’s work not only makes us question the same but also makes the viewer question their very own identity as an individual living in a country of mixed cultural flux. Sapna’s works are reminiscent of palimpaesta, manuscripts or scrolls bringing with them this mysterious air of being a shred of history bought before our eyes through a new language. A simplification of a complex process which translates into a desire to achieve - the whole, a divinity to achieve the unseen and the quest to an identity.
Seema Kohli
Having been a student of philosophy, Seema has inhaled and experienced myriad notions of existence, and has lived emotional and psychological reality. Seema works in both small and large formats with layers of drawings and colors. She has had 10 solo shows like ‘Hiranya Garbha’, presented by Art Roomand curated by Dr.Alka Pande, New Delhi, 2007; Gallery Space, Hyderabad, 2007; ISU Art Gallery, Singapore, 2001; ‘The Eternal Womb’ Art Heritage, 2006; and has been a part of numerous national and international group shows, like Fact and Fiction, London, 2007, Vistaar, New Delhi 2007, ‘Artscape’ Epicentre, Gurgaon, 2008, curated by Sushma Bahl, apart from participating in various art camps and workshops. Seema is also a part of the Art for Freedom at Bonhams Auction, Khushii Auction 2007 along with Twinkle Khanna, while also being a ready contributor to various other charitable auctions. Her paintings are with Lalit Kala Akadami, Sahitya Kala Akademi, Bharat Bhawan Bhopal, Northern Railway, Singapore Arts Council and various private and corporate collectors, She lives and works from her studio in Delhi.
There is a celebration of beauty, sensuality and intimacy in Seema’s art. The domain of sacred feminine geography with an effulgence of energy emanates from the paintings, where myth, memory and imagination have become the handmaiden of her own artistic oeuvre. Within the genres of sexuality and desire, one can’t ignore the parallel journeys of discovery that she has made. All the works are a prayer to the eternal self - a way of meditation. These works are spiritual but not religious, exploring with it a poetically elegant and richly sensuous female form.
The ‘Golden Womb’ is a celebration through which the supremacy of a female is established and how she procreates and keeps the journey of life, forever on. Her work is symbolic of the progress and recycling of thought processes in the human mind, which is portrayed as calmer, more mature and serene both in terms of the palette and the form.
Shakila
Born in 1969, Shakila has not received any formal training, but the skill with which she finishes her collages is something to marvel at. She does not go for the textual richness and surface relief which motivated the cubists and the constructivists to introduce collage into their painting as a technical innovation. Nor is she, like pop artists, interested in the new syntaxing of whole printed images for inversion of meaning, although she does construct new images by assembling bits of already printed images. But, in the process, she totally changes the original.
Shakila only chooses strips of paper that have right hues, shades and tones, so she can give her images volume, and foreshorten them when required. Her experience of life is undoubtedly narrow, but her flights of vision often lead to surprising constructions. She created highly balanced designs with images of common place objects.
Surinder
Surinder graduated from College of Art, New Delhi , in 1976. While still in College, she joined Triveni Kala Sangam in 1975. She has had over ten solo shows and several prestigious participations & awards including the 1st Biennale, Bharat Bhawan, Bhopal, “Indian Woman Artist ,” National Gallery of Modren Art, “Contemporary Panting from India “ Art Wave , New York, “Exhibition curated by Madame Schue”, Ambassador of Netherlands, National Gallery of Modern Art New Delhi, 3rd & 4th Biennale , Bharat Bhawan , Bhopal, “Ten Artist of Delhi”, Shahitya Kala Parishad, New Delhi, Several editions of the National Exhibition, Save the children Exhibition / Auction Amaraya, Dubai, ‘Wise ‘ Christies Exhibition / Auction Bombay, Revert to Nucleus of IndianArtCircle, The Women’s Year award of Shahitya Kala Parishad, Annual Exhibition, AIFACS , New Delhi. Annual Exhibition , Shahitya kala Parishad , New Delhi. Her works form a part of private and public collections in India, England, France, US, Canada, Italy, Spain and Netherlands.
Surinder works with both oils and water colours. She blends colours in perfect harmony. She brings out the subtleties in each medium with fine strokes and perfect blending of colours. A dialogue between space and time, her work seems to assign an apartment to each unit of our existence somewhere in time-space. Surinder’s work evokes some long forgotten layers of memory, where people and incidents become irrelevant, and our own responses to them rush back. Almost like déjà vu.
Vasundhara Tewari
Vasundhara completed B A (Literature) from Delhi University in 1976 and simultaneously studied art at Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi. She received All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society Award in Annual Exhibition in 1981 and National Cultural scholarship for Fine Arts from Ministry of Culture, H R D, Govt of India in 1982-84. Vasundhara won Silver Medal at the First International Biennale of Plastic Arts, Algiers in 1987 & received Senior Fellowship Ministry of Culture H R D, Government of India in 1996-98. She has had several solo exhibitions in New Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta, & in Chicago.
In her works, Vasundhara depicts these two worlds – inner and outer or the real and the dreamland – this juxtaposition and then the transition from one to the other creates a depth. She introduced the autobiographical in to her work feeling she could make a more authentic statement if she delved into the intimate world her own life and experience to create images of the 'contemporary women- her life and concerns’. So at certain moment during the time of her senior research fellowship, she started introducing elements of women's craft into her work. Though the work was very painstaking and intricate as she was using the compositional elements of miniature painting, she eventually started using it according to her own style of work but blown up in scale.
Vibha Desai
Vibha Desai is a post graduate from the M.S.University of Baroda, India. Since the late` 80s she has consistently exhibited in the country and abroad, to her credit invited for major exhibitions & auctions. Exhibited at places like New York, and invited to Sweden as a guest artist in the year 92 & 95 respectively, and the most important is first ever solo show of an Indian artist in the European Capital Brussels, Belgium. Many awards to her credit too, including the Gujarat State Lalit Kala Academy Award which she won twice over. Vibha is a recipient of the cultural scholarship from human resource development Department of Culture Govt. of India and a trained dancer in a classical mode (Bharat Natyam). Because of this was, in a way, inevitable that she developed an eye for figural detail. Hence, Obvious and natural affiliation with the human figure especially the lines gravitated around the female form.
About this painting, Vibha feels as if she is emerging from darkness to brightness and flooded over with full of contentment and divineness of spiritual feminine soul and beauty. She felt a wide avalanche within lightness and brightness. She has infused what she absorbed and what she felt. Her developed eye and knowledge converged into continuing dedication of diversity and creativity to a heightened expression of life and tone and spirit rather than specific moment. An overall harmony of colors – equivalent to that in nature is within her mind. The painting is evoking a poetic modernism.
Yuriko Lochan
Yuriko Lochan graduated from Kyoto City University of Arts, Kyoto, Japan and post-graduated from Kyoto City University of Arts in Oil painting . Her paintings have been exhibited throughout the past 20 years all over India and abroad. Her recent solo exhibition was held in India and Japan. She was appointed as The Special Advisor for Cultural Exchange by the Commissioner of Cultural Agency, Government of Japan (2004-2005). She has been contributing essays and reports for many Japanese magazines and Journals on India and Indian Art.
The universal elements she tries to find are; one is in nature, and the other is in human beings striving to live their lives within a given situation. She analyzes and observes how the human psyche is related to nature and how it prevails and manifests itself in different places relate to given surrounding situations. Her works are reflections of this understanding of people and nature, through her sincere, humble soul.
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