art focus – curated bandra street art walk – st+art mumbai

Posted on December 1, 2014 by Rama Arya

If Bandra’s charm could be codified, I guess this would be it. Cats and silver leaves—collaborative mural by Anpu Varkey (India) and Tika (Switzerland).

So what happens when 20 internationally renowned street artists from all over the world, and two passionate people from Delhi get together and decide to bring the power of art as a medium of creative expression to the streets of India, free and accessible to all? St+art happens.

From the 7th to the 30th, this November, over 30 murals in Mumbai transformed, otherwise drab edifices, into vibrant thought-provoking compositions. Luckily for me, a bulk of them were painted in Bandra, my home in this city. 🙂 Continue reading →

art focus – music and goddess – ranjit makkuni (sacred world)

Posted on November 16, 2014 by Rama Arya

Chants, ragas, notes and sweet melodies from wind, percussion and string instruments play almost simultaneously inside the vast interiors of the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai. But it is not cacophonic. Rather there is harmony in the eclectic mix. It is more the unusual for me, for it is an effortless amalgamation of technology, music and art, and of the traditional, modern and spiritual, to create a seamless expanse of personal experience. Continue reading →

art focus – fish in a dead landscape – hema upadhyay

Posted on October 24, 2014 by Rama Arya

As I push open the massive doors of Chemould Prescott Road, a colossal installation titled ‘Moderniznation’ depicting an aerial view of Bombay greets me. Pieces of car-scrap, aluminum sheets and found objects – materials used in the real built elements – spill over the gallery’s walls and floors. Miniaturized green mosque minarets, white church steeples and orange temple sikharas poke their way out of the sea of trampoline and tin squares. I look a little carefully and a cut out of the cricketer Sachin Tendulkar peeps out. Continue reading →

art focus – samiksha (commentary) – shahed pasha

Posted on September 11, 2014 by Rama Arya

Fairies taking away the Books

The fantasy-tical world of Shahed Pasha.

It is a world where millennia old Hindu mythological stories are portrayed in modern contexts in miniature painting style, by a born and bred Muslim, across mammoth canvases. Continue reading →

art focus – selfie – nilesh vede

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Rama Arya

“Nilesh Vede has an incredible ability to translate his thoughts on[to] paper or canvas.”

~ Salman Khan, Bollywood actor

I first saw Nilesh Vede‘s work a month ago at the Jehangir Art Gallery itself, as part of a group showing. And I fell in love with it, instantaneously. During our conversation on vipassana meditation and its translation to art, he invited me to his upcoming solo exhibition ‘Selfie’. It was an invitation I had every intention of accepting. 🙂 Continue reading →

art focus – rango ki rimzim – indian artist art center

Posted on July 14, 2014 by Rama Arya

Left: Naina Kanodia; Right: Prakash Waghmare. Both works untitled. Both stalwarts of India’s contemporary art scene

Reconnecting with art, albeit once a month, has become a much loved self-love ritual for me over the years. A ritual I have been fortunately able to carry through in my life in Mumbai. The contemporary art scene in India is pulsatingly alive, brimming with both stalwarts and newcomers alike. And never was it more obvious than during a recent afternoon spent at the Jehangir Art Gallery. Continue reading →

global travel shot: the london tube

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On one mid-afternoon, when the crowds are a little lesser, I went off to explore the platforms and escalators of the London tube. I knew the CCTVs were recording my every move as I clicked away. Even security was keeping an eye. But they were really sweet about it. Guess my enthusiasm was contagious. 🙂 Continue reading →

art focus – the passionate quest – amrita sher-gil

Posted on June 11, 2014 by Rama Arya

Self Portrait – the many faces of Amrita Sher-Gil, demure Indian, bohemian European (1930)

“It seems to me that I have never began painting, that I have always painted. And I have always had, with a strange certitude, the conviction that I was meant to be a painter and nothing else. Although I studied, I have never been taught painting in the actual sense of the word, because I possess in my psychological makeup a peculiarity that resents any outside interference. I have always, in everything, wanted to find out things for myself.”
~ Amrita Sher-Gil

Continue reading →

elephanta caves: mumbai’s 7th century shiva temples

Posted on May 23, 2014 by Rama Arya

Trimurti or Sadashiva – The Creator, The Protector, The Destroyer

Some 10 kilometers into the Arabian Sea, off the coast of South Mumbai, is a verdant island covered with five 7th Century rock cut temples dedicated to the Shaiva Hindu sect. Known as Elephanta Island and originally as Gharapuri, literally meaning the ‘city of caves’, its basalt rock hewn temples pay homage to the various forms and legends of Shiva. Continue reading →

art focus – a terrible beauty – meera devidayal

Posted on May 21, 2014 by Rama Arya

Where is the lake?

I was first introduced to video art in Cape Town, South Africa, at the National Art Gallery.

The video art of South Africa, as most of the country’s other modern art, finds itself emanating from the turmoil of its apartheid era, leaving the viewer ripped apart and then brought together into some semblance of wholeness. Video art, I learnt, was not meant as a once off viewing. Every time one watches it, a layer gets peeled, both in the narrative and in oneself, and the journey of exploration thus continues. Continue reading →