‘Money Matters…’

Economical Matters are something that can change the tracks of our lives and being a basic essential need to survive in this world it became more important issue for artists as well. So, how can it remain an untouched issue for artist's canvas, as artist Thirumala Madupu Thirupathi takes it as a central theme of his paintings..

Thirumala is a Hyderabad and Bangalore based artist who provides an inquiry centered upon a materialist interpretation of society and a dialectic view of social change through his works. Graduated in Painting from College of Fine Arts, J.N.T.U., Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh and a Postgraduate in Painting from Karnatka Chitrakala Parishad, Bangalore, Karnatka, Thirumala's works has included in many noticeable art exhibitions of both these places i.e. I.C.C.R. Art Gallery, Rabindra Bharti, Hyderabad Art Society, State Art Gallery, Shrishti Art Gallery, (Hyderabad) and at Institute of Engineers, Venkatappa Art Gallery, Kynkyny Art Gallery, (Bangalore) etc.

His works are translated silhouette of his own earned experiences and observations of the world around him, which travels right from his personal life to his contemporary consumerist culture. That is the point, where his works talks about the 'Money Matters' as a central theme.

Thirumala's association with 'Money' as a conceptual theme for his works started with the time of his father's death, because he was forced to think about money regarding issues. And these issues got transformed into the central theme of his paintings because there were multiple issues in periphery of this central theme what his mind was pre-occupied with.

As money became one of the major necessity in today's so called gentle/urban societies, apart from the food, cloth and shelter, which were once considered as necessary for human existence. Because the personality of a person is seen in terms of how much money s/he earns or poses. Exactly we are living in a consumerist world where money sets human relationships and only material for our daily transactions to buy products.

These all aspects of Thirumala's works could be traced over the theory of 'Marxism', which provides an economical sociopolitical worldview and a method of socioeconomic inquiry. As in the early mid 19th century, German Philosopher Friedrich Engels said, 'Everything is the product of our economical structure'. After Engels another pioneer of 'Marxism', Karl Marx added that this economical structure makes a base for superstructure on which culture stands. And this culture is later on recognized as 'Popular culture' which gives birth to commodities and fetishism. Theodor Adorno talks about it after Karl Marx. These kind of socio-economical inquires become more thought provoking and easily reachable to a common man as well, if rendered by an artist onto his canvas. Because image can be more direct to viewer having visual aesthetics in it and Thirumala's works has executed it well.

For instance in one of his work ‘For Sale’, where whole surface is divided into various boxes containing various daily life objects presented for advertisement. From all daily necessary things for common men and to an artist, an image of bridegroom is also seen, which tells the story of our ‘Dowry’ system where sons are sold by their parents for the sake of money only. Thus, marriages doesn’t happen in heaven but takes place in an greedy and varnished world where human beings are available like objects kept in showroom’s display. This work shows the current status of socio-economic situations and political fetishism as well.

Thirumala has used ‘a 500 note’ into various transformed characters, which shows the different aspects connected to money and how it affects to society and its belief system. His one painting of Rs. 500 note showing Mahatma Gandhi is keeping a cloth on his nose and mouth, makes a satire of nonsense usage of money, which has ashamed even a person like Gandhi, who is an inseparable part of that note. In another work he has given a spiral shape to ‘500 note’ which depicts its snaky character that can be harmful and poisonous like a snake if misused. Similarly some other works shows the 500 notes got transformed into shape of plants, which re-calls the image of popular household plant named as ‘Money-Plant’ which is surrounded by butterflies hovering around it, no doubt these butterflies are metaphor of human beings those are always greedy enough to grow an money-plant of false myths in ambition of making money. In one work ‘one rupee note’ has transformed into ‘paper boat’ which shows the role of money into artist’s own life where he is travelling with his wife in a boat made up of one rupee note but interestingly the river of life is without water and they both are trying to trail this.

Apart from the depiction of this powerful yet mythical money in form of ‘notes’ (silent yet powerful form of money), he has also used it in the form of coin (noisy and small unit of money). Like for showing the multiple usage of money in our life, he has made various gestures of hands playing with one rupee coin where artist is trying to articulate the power of money from which a man is sleeping unaffectedly. In another work coins are in cover of ‘banana’ as they are kept like ‘biscuits’ in packet shows that money is sweet and fruitful but could be destructive when invested in buying weapons, as in one work note is converted into form of weapon.

Thirumala’s works traces the different aspects of life and situations but they have enriched their iconographical account from ‘Popular’ and ‘Traditional’ images combined with mythical images as well which gives a pure Indian character to them. For instance a work, where daily market is made onto a page of daily calendar which almost every Indian house keeps and another work ‘Sanjeevani’  in which God ‘Hanuman’ is seen holding an ‘note mountain’ for the sake of saving the life of common people of the country. Clearly the iconography of story narrated in Hindu text ‘Ramayana’ has juxtaposed with contemporary situations which gives satirical stance to it. Another work with the dominant image of a hand onto whole surface says of false belief in ‘Palmistry’ where people believe in the money line called ‘Dhan-Rekha’ but artist don’t subsume to that belief, instead of believing in hard work, honesty and truth.

Artist's Works Courtesy: Studio Astrea

Concrete Memories of Serous

A Series of Photographs

A river is a natural watercourse and its energetic flow tells about its lively character. One cannot imagine a river without its flow, its life lies in its flow, if it is not flowing means its dead. Rivers have been used as a source of water, for food, for transport, as a defensive measure, as a source of hydropower to drive machinery, for bathing, and as a means of disposing of waste.

Rivers have been used for navigation for thousands of years. The earliest evidence of navigation is found in the Indus Valley Civilization, which existed in northwestern Pakistan around 3300 BC. Riverine navigation is still used extensively on most major rivers of the world like the Amazon, the Ganges, the Nile, the Mississippi, and the Indus. This one was the most important reason for embellishment of these ancient civilizations. These civilizations illuminated at bank of rivers and rivers have seen their birth, growth and termination. And today situation is converted onto river itself as many major rivers are at the stage of termination.

This situation of obsolescence of a river is something, B. Ajay Sharma wants to convey through his recent series of photography. Hailing from a religious place ‘Deoghar’ which is the place of mountains and rainy rivers but Today Rivers are replaced by sand congeries. After Deoghar, he graduated from another religious place, Varanasi, which itself situated at the bank of ‘Ganga’ river. So, it’s obvious of coming out of that free flowing image of river which he has seen, observed and lived with his childhood days. But that flowing image of river has much struggled with its contemporary situation/image. This conflict of contradictory images, one is lively and energetic and the other is lifeless and dried away; has given Ajay the title of this series of photographs,‘Concrete memories of serous’.

These places; where Ajay lived, brought up and educated, the religious milieu of them also touched his artistic nerve. So, he has connected this conflicted image of river with Indian mythological narrations as well. As according to Hindu mythology the river ‘Ganges’ is an epitome of ‘purification’ which leads ‘salvation’, an ultimate goal of human life. A story of birth of Ganges lies in the religious austerity of king ‘Bhagiratha’ who evocated for ‘descent of Ganges’ onto earth for felicity of creatures. But today this Ganges of Bhagiratha seems struggling for its own survival and praying for her go back from earth.

Similarly, one of important Indian textual source ‘Mahabharata’ contains a scene narrating story of Draupadi, The Kouravas and the evincible faith of Draupadi on lord Krishna. When Kauravas tried to ‘Cheer Harana’ of Draupadi in middle of their court, Draupadi prayed to Lord Krishna to help her and Draupadi’s sari became long enough to end. This heard and seen memory of pictures recalled again in form of these photographs, where Ajay imagine the river at place of Draupadi, who is praying for help. And we all must know, today no Lord Krishna will come to save her; we all human beings will have to play the role of Lord Krishna, but not to save only the lives of river but the lives of ourselves. Otherwise the increasing materialism and urbanism will rape our rivers.

Here the religious has connected to realistic, mythological has translated into materialistic, and the memory has converted into present harsh truth. So, the past, present and future all connected at one place arising internal dialects and at a single moment giving solution to it. The symbolic representations of the scenes, is something Ajay enjoyed photographing and his characters are the lone individuals having a silent dialogue with their viewers by each click of photograph!!

A Promising ‘Pebble’ among ‘9 Pebbles’

Profile

Poster of '9 Pebbles'

Walter Benjamin once said, ‘Nature creates similarities. One need only think of mimicry and men have the highest capacity for producing similarities. His gift of seeing resemblances is a rudiment of the powerful compulsion in former times to become and behave like something else. Perhaps there is none of his higher functions in which his mimetic faculty does not play a decisive role.’ (On the Mimetic Faculty, 1933)

This mimetic faculty of human behavior transcends itself into theater and drama, which has a long prestigious history and present as well. This is the point where young artist P. Yogesh Naik finds his major inspiration for his works. Grown up in Chikkamangalore, Karnataka, Yogesh’s art found its  place at Chamarajendra Academy of Visual Arts (CAVA), Mysore, obtaining a bachelor of fine arts in painting which finally resulted into his move to Delhi for completing his master in fine arts with painting from College of Art, New Delhi in 2010.

Artist P. Yogesh Naik

Yogesh takes ‘mime’ as a preferred interest for his paintings because he venerate it as a strong expression of society which is also essential for a painter’s work. All this started developing its impact on Yogesh’s thought process when he became a part of ‘Rangayana’, a place for cultural activities and art center in Mysore, where dramas are staged. These dramas conveying the social problems and successfully connecting themselves to emotions of viewers left an urge to express the problematic social aspects over the artistic inside of Yogesh. He then felt that his brush could be a strong tool to express his own dilemma’s connecting to society at whole.

This aspect of Yogesh’s art practice could be traced over the philosophical terrains of ‘Catharsis’, a theory given by Greek philosopher Aristotle in his work ‘Poetics’ and afterwards discussed by many other philosophers/aestheticians. Catharsis is a term for dramatic art which describes the ‘emotional cleansing’ sometimes depicted in a play as occurring for one or more of its characters, as well as part of the audience's experience. It describes an extreme emotional change, as the result of experiencing strong feeling (such as sorrow, fear, pity, or even laughter). Thus result into ‘purification’ or a ‘purging’ of such emotions. In that context, it refers to a sensation or literary effect that would either be experienced by the characters in a play, or be wrought upon the audience at the conclusion of a tragedy; the release of pent-up emotion or energy which Yogesh wants to bring out with his brush.

Untitled, Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48 inches, 2010

Gomati, Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 36 inches, 2010

His work reveals own inner questions which stands in the form of raised issues of world around him within a made framework of imagination executed through the satirical images. The figures in their delicate, sly and playful world are almost invariably focused on an event, animated by a mutual curiosity, pointing out something that is odd, incongruous or comically bizarre. For the viewer the wit resides as much in the scale of the depictions as it does in the finely summarized telling detail of the vignette.

Drama actors, their body movements, expressions and psychological effects they leave upon mind and later they developed narrative language in stylistic discourse of painting. Here, Yogesh has also inspired by the ‘Lambani’, a form of tribal art of Karnataka, which uses lots of patterns and designs in crowded manner, the same is seen in his paintings where figures are huddled or scattered all around on the canvas in large number via meticulous representation of them.

Untitled, Acrylic on canvas, 104 x 142 inches, 2010

Untitled, Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 72 inches, 2011

Market, Acrylic on canvas, 72 x 72 inches, 2012

In most of the works faces are wearing masks as they are drama actors, but Yogesh feel the mask; a layer between real and taken, because it hides the identity of wearer and translate the whole act to external world in the form of a performance. As we all are the performers on the enormous stage of society, and characters of his each painting speaks about their inner urges suppose they are performing on the stage of canvas, as their funny gestures says more than what reflects on surface.

While the source of expressions is dramas, the mudras/hand movements are mainly influenced by ‘Bharatnatyam’, a dance which express lot of finger movements. The relationship between the body movement and expression is to create drama in the mind as this simply created dramatic effect becomes strong enough to convey artist’s message to the society. Creating dramatic situations through the canvases has been the prime interest of the artist, which could able to affect directly on the sensitivity of viewer; while the post college period he slowly started to shift towards the city life which he was experiencing after moving to metropolitan like New Delhi. The reality of metropolitan stood strongly in front of him because his earlier serene village world was no more now.

 

So, there was a parallel project to him, what he was analyzing towards new experience of time and place. This led him to play with his childhood memories which he started  reinserting into contemporary experiences along with amalgamated version of social realities and their political context for instance poverty, identity crisis, dilemma of relationships and of all lose of human values which are generally born out of population explosion and psychological phenomena of modern societies.

Thrust, Oil & Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 72 inches, 2009

Deep Thrust, Acrylic on canvas, 52 x 66 inches, 2011 

As in work ‘Thrust’ and ‘Deep Thrust’, idea is basically born out of childhood memory of village life where people used to gather around the well for taking water and the whole milieu created by them gives him opportunity to paint the scenario in urban context too; where he connect the scene to current social and political conditions as politicians works only for their individual profit and their thrust can’t be ever completed, on the other hand the rural places which truly demands development remains same even towards the so called progress of cities.  This memory of well scene provide him glimpses of long-lasting queues waiting for just a bucket of water, Sometimes as the line ends, the flow of water might stop and no one could have water for the rest of the day. It simply shows how man is struggling at every step of his life and there are people like the politicians who rule us and do not give us anything except their false promises, where common people are merely puppets in the hands of these politicians who literally rule our lives. This scene of long-lasting queues continues to date only context changes from water to LPG cooking Gas and Kerosene etc.

Red Alert, Oil & Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 72 inches, 2008

Untitled, Oil & Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 72 inches, 2009 

Yogesh also shows the ambitious destinations of metro city living people those are always in hurry and ready for shortcuts to achieve somehow they want. In one work via making a crowd trying to capture the aircraft, Yogesh has interestingly pointed out their psyche by making few of them without wearing footwear and some of minimized figures in try to using other’s shoulders.

Untitled, Acrylic on paper, 48 x 60 inches, 2011

Similarly in his work ‘Street Walk’, he creates a large and long road is full of crowd where people walking besides each other without interacting to one, suppose everyone means of his own destine but they are creating a scenario with all combined amaze him lot. Their physical presence and mental state both seems paradoxical quest which he has depicted through a washy memory of such places as among the meticulous presentation of human figures some of blank outlined figures has left. These crowded roads have hundreds people doing hundred things, unseen by our hurried eyes. Things we see in a particular situation but everyone is in hurry enough to ignore the stark realities happening around and we all still continues living normal life without turning an eye behind.

Street walk, Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 72 inches, 2011

Freeze, Oil & Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 72 inches, 2008

Untitled, Oil & Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 72 inches, 2008

The dramatic relation created by the linear figures and flat black color presented against the figurative foreground results into painterly quality of works. Expressing thoughts by using minimum colors has been a great challenge to Yogesh, but he accepted the challenge and succeeded in it because he believes ‘Minimum is Maximum’. The black color represents the darkness of life or rather the dark parts of life which man refuses to see. In few of the works colorful objects also make their presence to show worldly pressures and silhouette of modern world. It also depict lush green past of the man as he has forgotten the beautiful entity relationships and humanity in the run for false ambitions. Sometimes drained human feelings have shown by making human skeletons and keeping them black and white in color.

Nostalgic, Oil & Acrylic on canvas, 4 x 6 feet

Untitled, Acrylic on canvas, 52 x 66 inches, 2011

Due to increasing population survival gets tougher day by day which Yogesh shows in ‘The speaking tree’ where the crowd of people trying to survive in the same place. As the crowd increases, the branches grow. Here, one can see a delicate relationship between a man with another man where each one is holding the other by some kind of an invisible thread for survival which can be economical, emotional or some other. Similarly ‘used virgin’ depicts toilet pot being used by many everyday. It might not be cleaned but reused again by another man. It is a place of relief for a man, but not given a state in the society. Here the toilet pot could be connected to a ‘female’ being used by men to satisfy his pleasures. At the end of the day she is only ‘other’ like a toilet pot, which is used and forgotten and still treated as a place of dirt and stink.

Speaking tree, Oil & Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 72 inches, 2009

Speaking tree, Acrylic on paper, 22 x 28 inches, 2009

Used virgin, Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 148 inches, 2009

Used virgin, Acrylic on paper, 22 x 28 inches, 2011

Used virgin, Acrylic on canvas, 26 x 48 inches

Here, Yogesh exemplify thematic endeavors showing nuances of daily life in urban metropolitan cities, highlighting hustle and bustle, chaos; involving the dynamic actions of multiple characters. These lure him to engage in the so called struggle for existence by making anxious landscapes of city dwelling which is the large question yet to be explored.

Yogesh’s art practice is promising enough to develop a deep dialogue with his contemporary time. He is the recipient of HRD Ministry of Culture, Junior Artists Fellowship 2010 and has exhibited his works around Mysore, Vadodara, Haryana and New Delhi. Recently his works were concluded in a group exhibition ‘9 Pebbles’ organized by Creativity Art Gallery in February-March 2012 at Shridharani Art Gallery, Tansen Marg, New Delhi which is also on the view at Creativity Art Gallery, Lado Sarai, New Delhi.

Image Courtesy: The Artist

On the threshold of time

(Poster of the Exhibition)

Habitation in a metropolitan like New Delhi provides thematic content to many artists for their works. It’s a spacious field which gives many areas to explore as impact of growing urbanization causes sapidity and straining both. This is one can sensate a prevalent concern of the works presently showcasing under the title ‘On the threshold of time’ at Art Heritage Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam, Tansen Marg, New Delhi. Introducing young artists Aditi Aggarwal and Bharti Verma from College of Art, New Delhi, the show is on view from April 29 to June 9, 2012.

Both the artists are neighboring each other at certain points than soon they segregate their concerns. Aditi Aggarwal has been quite experimental as she has not diminished her language into a specific style. Her styles and approach toward working provides different perspectives to watch but still they have imbibed the identity of the artist and her process of working. Her semi-abstract canvases shows the process of replete enjoyment which artist would have definitely experienced while painting, as she revels in evolving forms using multiple layers of thick impasto in acrylic color. It can be channelized to create harmonies of color, rhythm and texture which are charged of energetic repetition. These semi-abstract works says of Aditi’s sub-consciously created ‘mindscapes’ which sometime reaches at the verge of ‘consciousness’ and ‘figuration’ also.

Aditi Aggarwal, ‘Untitled’
Acrylic on canvas, 4ft x 4ft, 2012 

Aditi Aggarwal, ‘Mindscape-1’ 
Acrylic on canvas, 4ft x 5ft, 2012 

Aditi Aggarwal, ‘Mindscape-2’ 
Acrylic on canvas, 4ft x 4ft, 2012 

Aditi seems quite conscious of compositional tenets and aesthetic merits of her works while doing acrylics on canvas, which most often gives perspective of a ‘Google map’ view of a metropolitan city. Her city depicts the joyous life yet vacuumed space has seen created as color palette suggests comprising bright, dull and dark hues of colors. These ‘untitled’ small canvases includes circular, squarish and rectangular shaped forms; at times gives stance of some machinery fixing of bolts and tools placed on flat board, which one can decipher as a inside structure of some mechanical device or could be relate to a urbanized city as both functions on a mechanical and well-designed pattern/process.

Aditi Aggarwal, ‘Untitled’ 
Acrylic on canvas, 8 x 8, 2012 

Aditi Aggarwal, ‘Untitled’ 
Acrylic on canvas, 11 x 11, 2012 

Aditi Aggarwal, ‘Untitled’ 
Acrylic on canvas, 12.5 x 12, 2012 

Apart from this deliberated approach of using forms and creating compositions she feels freer while working on paper with ink and water color. On few canvases titled ‘Daily Encounter’ she traces her own journeys and has pasted bus tickets on canvas. These mix-media canvas reveals her intention of breaking the limits of two-dimensional surface. She has also experimented with sculptures.

Aditi Aggarwal, 'Untitled'
ink & water color on paper, 12.5 x 9.5, 2009 

Aditi Aggarwal, ‘Encounter’, 
Mixed media on paper, 8.1 x 5.9, 2009 

Bharti Verma is more specific about her concern of dealing with urban space of a ‘globalized’ era and its existence within a ‘localized’ location. In her oils on canvas Bharti tries to bring the notions of emptiness and seclusion creating intramural scenes of human dwelling places but devoid of human presence. These empty cubes like spaces are filled with murky and squalid environment, painted in monochromatic shades of blue, brown and black and sudden appearance of color like blue, yellow, brown and red says perhaps of an inner ray of hope. This appearance of color also creates a visual interest in composition as same she creates via using some different/real object or material in her few other canvases and in pen drawings on canvas.

Bharti Verma, ‘Uncertainty’ 
Oil on canvas with fiber glass, 72 x 48 

Bharti Verma, ‘Mystify’, Oil on canvas, 18 x 60

Bharti Verma, ‘Conjugation’ 
Pen on canvas, 48 x 72

Though the lack of privacy experienced in cramped dwelling places, despite a sense of loneliness is seen in somber cityscapes, which is like providing various perspectives to watch through different windows.  These windows/doors are providing a wall-opening view and seeing them gives a feel of an invitation to viewer for entering into them, suppose they wants to fulfill their emptiness and loneliness by presence of viewers. These mystic characters of the city led artist to depict melancholic atmosphere of a metropolitan which tells the story of presence and absence in a single moment. Bharti has also experimented with mediums and with surface of canvas as she puts a water tap onto canvas where she entitles her city as a ‘flux city’ and uses a convex mirror into meticulous pen drawing on canvas titled ‘visual essence’ and string up a small hand stitched dress onto a clothes dryer cord facing a whole perspective of a city.

Bharti Verma, ‘Vision through window’ 
Oil on canvas with wood, 18 x 18 x 2.5 

Bharti Verma, ‘Flux City’ 
Oil on canvas with Tap & ware, 36 x 48 

Bharti Verma, ‘Visual Essence’ 
Pen on canvas with convex mirror, 36 x 48 

Bharti Verma, ‘My Enigmatic World’ 
Pen on Canvas & cloth, 36 

As an overall and combined effort both the artists Aditi Aggarwal and Bharti Verma have given form to their experiences of a metropolitan city, to which many of among us could connect ourselves. both have played out with different approaches of working as one enjoy her instant process of working, depicting energetic forms in bright colors and other enjoys her meticulous process and feeling relived from depressing dilemma of city life by expressing it through the works!!

Image Courtesy: Art Heritage Gallery