art focus – experiments with pencil, print, paper – nandini bagla chirimar

Posted on July 27, 2020 by Rama Arya

“Why do I draw?” Nandini Bagla Chirimar, a New York based mixed media artist, echoes my question with a peal of laughter, her eyes shining behind her neon pink glasses. “My art is a personal diary of my life—as a mother, daughter, home-maker and Indian artist living in New York—a lot of it is autobiographical,” she tells me, sipping her mint lemonade, her head slightly tilted in reflection.

“I would call them a visual form of my daily thoughts and feelings. Thoughts and feelings are not ‘real’, right? They’re just there in our heads and hearts. But once I give them a visual form, they become tangible. I feel like I have created a new reality, a reality of the inner me.” We are in a tea cafe in Lower Parel, having just had a dekko at her piece currently exhibiting in The Loft, Mumbai.

Nandini’s work is unlike any I have seen before. It is acutely personal, layered, and uses a mix of mediums and techniques to create an inimitable form of ethereal beauty. And depth. It takes the viewer deeper and deeper into an unseen world, and as you mentally peel away the gossamer thin layers of Japanese Kozo paper covered with paintings, etchings and drawings stacked upon each other, it unveils a reflected world in ourselves. Through her personal experiences one ends up exploring larger phenomenon which none of us are immune to—migration, identity, relationships, grief, death, and memories. Continue reading →

art focus – after the fall – dhruvi acharya

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Rama Arya

Dhruvi Acharya is one of my favourite artists ever, and her exhibition ‘After the Fall’ one of the most evocative I have been to. Since I have not travelled these past four months, like the rest of the world, I have nothing new to blog about on travel. After writing 16 posts since the lockdown, I have no pending posts to work on anymore either. In the weeks to come, I will be republishing some of my posts on contemporary and modern Indian art. Hope you enjoy these glimpses into the world of Indian art.

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Who of us has not felt the pain of losing a loved one—the acute heartache and a shattering of the self into a zillion pieces? Whether it be death, distance, or indifference, loss brings us to a version of reality smeared with the unknown, and a feeling of disconnect with the present. And of all the wounds, the death of someone we love is the cruellest of all. Especially, when it sneaks into our life and takes us by surprise.

Dhruvi Acharya, Mumbai-based artist, lost her husband Manish Acharya, an actor and film-maker, in a freak accident in Matheran in 2010. He fell off his horse and died of brain haemorrhage.

A soft sculpture monochromatic installation featuring a bedroom titled “What once was, still is, but isn’t …” is her statement of her bereavement: a personal and poignant declaration. It is the central exhibit of her solo exhibition “After the Fall,” post a gap of eight years in India, running at the Chemould Prescott Road art gallery. Through the installation, Acharya also steps out for the first time from painting and delves into 3-dimentional art. Continue reading →

art focus – deconstructed innings: a tribute to sachin tendulkar – tenart

Posted on February 16, 2015 by Rama Arya

Indian contemporary art has come a long way in the last two decades, distinctive in its blend of Indian subjectivity and international sensibilities. A landmark in this journey for the modern art enthusiast, and the sports fan in this case, is its current foray into the space of cross-disciplinary creativity.

I had walked into the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai not knowing what to expect that day. Art and sport? I was the predictable, pseudo, purist audience steeped in self-indicted cynicism. I left the gallery a couple of hours later, overwhelmed and humbled with emotion, pride, and an insight into the complexities woven around a sporting legend and its artistic elucidations.

Ten of India’s finest modern art protagonists had come together for the first time, through ‘Deconstructed Innings,’ with the singular purpose of artistically interpreting the innings of one of the country’s greatest sporting heroes, collaborating with the icon himself. The result was an exhibition that was aesthetically beautiful and exhilarating in 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 →