1x1 Art Gallery, will exhibit a new collection of avant-garde paintings, video installations and sculptures by Bose Krishnamachari, Chittrovanu Mazumdar, Hema Upadhyay, Justin Ponmany, Riyas Komu and Shibu Natesan at Art Paris, Abu Dhabi, 2008 at Booth No B10.
Bose pays as much attention to form as he does to conceptual and/or contextual concerns. Startling planes of flat color juxtaposed against skilful, almost photographic, representations of identifiable persona, imbue the work with an ’international’ sensibility.
Chittrovanu Mazumdar’s work speak of human paradox and ambiguity, of the seeping grey of daily life that escapes the purity of black and white. What appears to link the very visually and formally different phases of his work is the intensity of sensual immersion demanded by the artist of both himself and the viewer.
Justin Ponmany has fashioned himself as citizen and artist in a demanding, even inflammable metropolitan context. His aesthetic combines the grittiness of everyday technologies of communication and protocols of iteration with the lyricism of a meditation on self, place, time, decay and survival.
Hema is an artist of current times. Upadhyay’s works use two media, photography and painting. Her paintings refer often to home, not as a place of security, but to address a sense of dislocation, of people wanting a root but being violently pulled and pushed out. Her works are sensitive and deeply introspective.
Komu is keen on sort of "ringing alarm bells" about the explosive urban situation through his art. His work refers to the paradoxes of the urban situation where on one hand, there is the glamour and on the other, abject poverty. He paints with compassion and cynicism. There is some amount of dejection and anguish yet his work reflects hope.
Shibu Natesans paintings, with their affirmation of realistic representation, mirror the complexity and ambivalence of art practice in India today. Each work, vastly different in subject matter from the other, portrays a person, a situation, a building and interior or exterior scenes. Connecting them all is an acute distillation of the given moment, of a deeply haunting sense of stilled time, of an intimation of some dark, imminent crisis.
Art Paris – Abu Dhabi, the second edition of the capitals international art fair dedicated to modern and contemporary art, held at the Emirates Palace, acts an annual meeting point for the local and international art market and for all of the art collectors and art lovers of the Arab world.
1x1 Art Gallery established in 2006 has always been at the forefront of the Indian Art scene, exhibiting modern and contemporary Indian Art. With a steady calendar of cutting edge exhibitions, which wowed the critics, the gallery set new benchmarks for works in installation and new media. The efforts of Malini Gulrajani, Director, 1x1 have won her plaudits both in India and internationally. Her extensive knowledge of the Indian art milieu has earned her a reputation to be envied. Over the past several years Malini has found herself much in demand as a consultant for serious collectors and art connoisseurs who are in the process of building up their own private collections.
“Working with the arts is both a passion and an addiction. It drives me to achieve milestones which have never been set before in the Middle East.”
1x1 is privileged to be a part of “The Monumental Art Garden” put together by the Art Paris team, that comprises of a collection of large installations and sculptures by celebrated artists from various parts of the world and displayed on the terrace of the Emirates Palace. Here 1x1 will exhibit the works of N N Rimzon, Biju Joze and Vivek Vilasini.
BIju Joze work at present is driven by ethical and moral concerns regarding ecology, technology and science, and arises out of my experience of an urban/global yet cultural Indian context. Finding more fulfillments in sculpture and installations, he uses a variety of media ranging from steel, fiberglass, found objects and such conventional materials to locally sourced organic material like betel leaves, arca nut, tobacco leaves etc that one may easily identify as being very "Indian".
Speaking Stones by Rimzon highlights the atrocities and massacres that have been a part of Indian history post independence. With his sculptures, arranged in an installation-like space, energised by various contradictions of size, colour, setting etc. he directs the viewer to a complex experience of his imagining.
Vilasini ‘s atypical career led him to a strong interest in multimedia techniques. “Bride of the Seven Climes” is a symbolic representation of the materials used, the visuals and the title. The work comprises of large containers bound with rope. Where the rope binds and limits the possibility of infinite extension and freedom and the bowl contains.
The work comprising of seven pots is not merely in the quantitative but also in the symbolic qualities of numbers. Seven colors, seven ages, seven days, seven notes, seven seas, seven stages of purification… The alchemy of change.
