Kiran Nadar Museum of Art presents ‘An Auteur’s Palette’ – week long online festival of Amit Dutta’s films

Source APN News
Meandering at a restful pace through the vastness of artistic forms and expressions, Amit Dutta’s roving eye cajoles the viewer to accompany him on his search for luminosity. It soon becomes evident that the liminal scatter of light often journeys through space and time, beyond the ‘hashiya’, the margins of a miniature painting’s mise-en-scene into the wider landscapes of Kangra valley, and then sometimes into the privy studios of veteran artists –interspersed with biographical testimonies and anecdotes. Each film by him then becomes like a tavern, a sarai, where you halt and observe the theatrics of characters, lived and imagined of various hues and temperaments. In an arguably auteur-esque manner, Dutta claims the vision of an artiste-genealogist himself, proliferating each frame with his own reflections.
> read more

Studio Visit: Textile Artist Sagarika Sundaram on Working in Silence and Seeking Out Felts From Around the Globe

Source ArtnetNews by Noor Brara
The on-the-rise artist, who showed her works in a group show at Mana Contemporary last October, spent her early life bouncing back and forth between India and Dubai, during which time she’d gaze out the windows of planes, studying land formations in all their varying colors and shapes. Today, the images of those landscapes inspire her to create her own fabrics, which she produces by hand, on occasion working with a felt-making community in the lower Himalayas to gather regionally specific raw materials to fuse together textiles that suggest natural bodies like rivers, mountains, and valleys. Recently, Sundaram, who was featured on PBS’s Rising Artists program last fall and was recently shortlisted for the UC Berkeley South Asia Art Prize, spoke to Artnet about her process, her studio dosas, the stack of books on her nightstand, and more.
> read more

Hit in Japan, Dahanu's Warli artists test Mumbai waters

Source Mid-Day by Jane Borges
If all goes as planned, the Vayeda brothers will be exhibiting their paintings at ARTISANS’ in Kala Ghoda in September this year. Radhi Parekh, founder-director of the gallery and store, who recently was in conversation with the duo during a virtual launch of the book, says, “As I see more and more of their paintings, I’ve come to realise that their work is very conceptual and transcendental. They have a bigger picture on their art, which leads to an abstraction, be it their subjects or their narration. What stands out [for me] is how pictographic Warli art is. They are constantly adding to the vocabulary and grammar of the art form, and this, without really abandoning its visual language. I think they have benefitted a lot from [seeing Warli art from a] distance, and the mentoring they’ve received from artists they have worked with in Japan. The finesse of their rendering is just superb. It’s a beautiful coming together of concept, technique, skill and execution. And therefore, their art is worth taking note of, as it develops.” She adds that though the Vayedas come from a place that is not too far away from Mumbai, “they’ve had their exhibitions everywhere, except here”. “In recent years, Warli art has been mired in [a lot of] commercialism, and has almost become imitative, because it’s a language that is so easy to learn. But, then you see the works of Tushar and Mayur, and you know this is different.”
> read more

Bhuri Bai: My Life as an Artist

Source Museum of Art & Photography Bangalore
Bhuri Bai's paintings are characterised by their lively visual vocabulary driven by an autobiographical and archival impulse, as she draws from her encounters with flora and fauna in the forests surrounding her village, motifs from traditional tattoos and her later experiences and travels as a contemporary artist. Narrated using her own words and paintings, combined with new research, this exhibition charts Bhuri Bai’s inspiring journey from growing up as a daily wage worker from a marginalised community to becoming a successful contemporary artist.
> read more

Mumbai: This exhibition focuses on the human body and its many aspects

Source Architectural Digest by Deepali Singh
In his curatorial note for Portraits of the Self—II, Mumbai-based Gallery Maskara's curatorial director Abhay Maskara writes, ‘Portraits of the Self—II places the human body in focus—revealing not only its strength and passion, but also its vulnerability and sensuality'. The exhibition includes paintings by Parag Sonarghare and sculptures made using found, reclaimed and recycled materials by Prashant Pandey. Larger-than-life portraits of male figures by Sonarghare are displayed side by side with Pandey's use of by-products of human activity in innovative ways. Maskara, who has previously showcased the works of both the artists, believes that just as conversation between people can be rich when differences are celebrated and embraced, so too in art. “Both Prashant and Parag have different concerns and use different materials and forms to express themselves yet they are connected in the way they push the boundary on conventional ways of seeing,” he says.
> read more