Profile
When human beings start to communicate with each other through the meanings that they derive out of the relationship between objects and themselves, a society of spectacle is born. Chandrashekar Koteshwar believes in it and his attention is to capture this displaced meaning/communication seen apparent in our globalized society. Nisha Aggarwal profiles the artist.
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| Artist Chandrashekar Koteshwar |
Chandrashekar Koteshwar is a Baroda based young artist. Born in Udupi, Karnataka he currently lives and works in Baroda, Gujarat. He studied Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture at Chamarajendra Academy of Visual Arts, Mysore and has completed his Masters degree in Museology from Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU, Baroda, in 2007 and 2009 respectively.
Primarily Koteshwar’s works reflect his own experiences collected throughout the life journey. Apart from the experiences his observations have made him to state his comments more precisely. As an artist he see himself a commentator of present day world’s Globalization, a term which has been doing rounds since 1990s. Globalization is a process of integration arises out of ‘interchange’ and ‘interdependence’ of cultural and economic resources. Despite all developments that globalization offers, the artist’s attention is to look at the negative fall out of it and it could be seen as the main objective of Koteshwar’s works.
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| Elephant Thief |
Koteshwar feels that globalization has created strange consumerist creatures out of human beings. It has turned the society into a cauldron of desires. People rush to change, exchange and interchange life just through consuming objects. The aftershocks of a thunderingglobalization have even reached the peripheral areas of the society where people have been living in harmony with nature for a long time. In this bogus process our cultural heirloom is also being frittered away. In this hybrid culture, the notions of ‘sanctified’ and ‘natural’ have no space or value.This cultural globalization has enhanced cross-cultural contacts but by accompanying the mitigation of the ‘uniqueness’ of once-isolated cultures. It will ultimately depolarize their importance too.
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| Give & Take |
This efficacy at another side collates us to a question like ‘Where We Are?’ A painting with the same title is a visual representation of the question. Globalization and population growth bring forth rapid industrialization and urbanization. It takes over the areas of natural environments encompassing all living and non-living things occurring naturally on earth. It is an environment that links the interaction among living species i.e. birds, animals, plants and human beings. But when natural environment is contrasted with the ‘built environment’ comprising the areas and components that are strongly influenced by humans, it becomes arduous to find ‘absolute’ natural environment. Hence, a fragmented hybrid landscape arises.
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| Where We Are? |
These manipulated images form a language in Koteshwar’s paintings. These are often rendered into a traditional environment of Indian miniature paintings. This environment gives Indian context to the subject/theme and also a satirical stance. For instance in one of his works titled ‘Handle with Care’ two male figures (reference from miniature paintings) bearing ‘text’ as a hand barrow exhorts the Indian tradition of marriages. The presence of trees in the background and text itself suggests metaphorical depiction of decreasing greenery on the earth. This text ‘Handle with Care’ prompts to a museum space and it’s aspects like conservation, protection and showcasing of historical objects as well.
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| Handle With Care |
This urge towards conservation and protection plays a pivotal role in Koteshwar’s other works also. A painting ‘You, Me and Tiger’, is basically a picture clicked with a tiger for the viewers. Tiger here is an obsolescent animal (past), and artist’s self-image (present) with it is an endeavor to save the picture for (future) generations. In few of other works, the ‘faceless’ human beings depict their lost identities. There is also an exigency of rampart advocacy.
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| You, Me and Tiger |
The images occur sometimes in a concrete appearance giving a sculptural outlook to the viewers. They narrate the reference from mythological lores. Here, Koteshwar’s art has built its thematic and visual dictionary by siphoning his diverse academic trainings in Painting, Sculpture and Museology. It tries to discover the evolution of the entire universe, which he has started out probably as the smallest element. And gradually he sees how effectively he can take traditional aspect of confronting large/complex ideas of changing the globe and inverting them for a solution through his artistic journey.
(First Appeared online in CartanArt Magazine, Issue-III, April 2014)
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