In Focus:
Merely standing before the silk cloth painted in golden yellow with a blush of a pink around it , you can feel an aura of serenity descend on you. Even as you look, you meditate at Auroville artist Louis’s exhibition ‘Sacred Mandalas’. Hosted by the Aurodhan Gallery, the exhibit has paintings on silk that evoke a sense of the mystic and spiritual. There is the Om, the Mother’s symbol, the Japanese lotus and the chakras at the heart of each painting. Geometric patterns are weaved in pristine blues, deep browns and radiant pinks. Juxtaposed with the silk mandalas are painted fibre-glass lamps. The Ganesha sculpted out of glass glows a fiery orange while the yellow and orange colours that run into each other on another lamp are bottled sunrise.
Sacred Mandalas is on at Aurodhan Gallery, Rue Francois Martin till March 25 from 9.30 a.m. to 6.30 p.m.
Art Holi
Using his fingers as brushes, German artist Alfred Bast, gave art lovers at Aurodhan a treat of a different kind for Holi. The festival of colours was celebrated with a union of music and colour at Aurodhan.
As violinist Holger strummed the first strains of the violin, Bast began with splotches of colours on the end of a large horizontal canvas. Mixing ten colours in tandem with the violin, Bast filled the spaces with strokes. As the violin reached a crescendo, he completed his live art performance.
The audience took back a postcard size painting finger- painted for them at the venue, in a generous initiative by the artist.
Before Exit:
Do you want to momentarily leave the city and take a glimpse of rural life? Artist Tiroumale’s paintings do just that. Don’t go into the Hotel Promenade, where his show Surreal is exhibited, expecting paddy fields. Tiroumale eschews realistic depictions but his work is inspired by slices of rural life. Catch it before March 25. An alumnus of Bharathiar Palkalai Koodam, his inspiration stems from surrealist Salvador Dali. Captivated by nature and the skies, Tiroumale’s works are an ode to Nature’s beauties that we often take for granted. Catch the show before March 25.
Coming up:
Artist Mithran’s ‘Abstract and modern’, opens at Maison Perumal on Perumal Koil Street on Sunday evening, March 23. Acrylic and oil blend to create a mosaic of patterns that span subjects from the lovely daffodil to the burning issue of global warming. The show, supported by Shilpataru Foundation, will be on display for a month
( Art Street takes a tour of the town’s vibrant art scene and brings you a compendium )
