The year unveiled as a matrix of design innovation, creative vitality and contemporary explorations. Four artists stood apart for the locus of originality in their practices. It ranged from the beauty of ceramics in the hands of Japneet Keith from Chandigarh who spends time between Australia and India, Purvai Rai who created a silent yet distinct debut with design dynamics in jute, Sachin George Sebastian from Bengaluru whose paper installations were a surreal statement in metamorphosis, and Arun Pandit from Garhi Studio who unveiled a suite of bronzes that personified Ernst Friedrich Schumacher symbolism of ‘small is beautiful.’
Sachin George Sebastian: Paper installations
A NID graduate, Sachin’s leitmotif is the city. At Art Motif’s “Of Paper” exhibition, his installation in a box had about it a Zen synergy consisting of the grammar of formal engagement in translating emotional and psychological aspects of urban living. Cutting paper in cubist dimensions has a spectral aura even as it traces transformations in urban living etched in dulcet dualities of light and shadow.
Sachin states, “For me my art is about the city and about experiences that progress within the changes that happen. I’m constantly thinking about humans undergoing transformations. I take many ideas and translate this into my little spaces. I take transformation and change and trace it to multiple sites located within and without.”
He is now for a few years been working on the notion of how a city continually undergoes a transformation, and how even the subjects as well as the city itself changes. “Within the deep and obvious set of transitions, some people are able to deal with it, while some struggle, others give up, and a few rise above the others. In the overlap of experiences and lines that are difficult to draw, my work looks at that confluence. For me, the act of cutting with a pair of scissors becomes the moment of combustion in creativity, it defines the transitory and the ephemeral.”
Arun Pandit: Bronzes and moulds
Arun Pandit’s “Thinker”
At Art Heritage, Amal Allana designed an oasis of bronzes with an air of darkroom drama by the Lalit Kala National Award Winner Arun Pandit. “Resonance in Time” brings together a series of works that Pandit has created in his own insignia of the bronze, the casting mould and man. At the centre of his universe is the human figure, his images have the mould that becomes the pedestal and the clothing and the design. Pandit works on the principle of experiences and personal convictions. A lover of Constantin Brancusi as well as Ram Kinkar Baij, it is the rustic resonance in his imagery and his flawless patina that sets him apart as a unique practitioner of sculpture.
Pandit says, “My sculptures are not beautiful – they come under the category of challenging and awkward. Often the viewer has to look at it from different angles to understand the language and the expression of the gestures I use. Sculpture, for me, is about the art of looking. I created the rippled image of multiple features because for me it is about a way of seeing.
“I remember in Patna where I studied I noticed that there was an additive process and a multiplicity in trends – in the simple architecture of houses I saw so much of a trend in likes and happenings.” Sculpture for Pandit is about a journey that creates dialogues that pass through the corridors of time. “It’s about creating a language that illustrates the beauty of the gravity of bronze. The human figure is the most enduring. It is the foundation on which I contemplate the context of life’s drama.”
Purvai Rai: Jute, yarn and cotton
Purvai Rai’s Memory Graph
A minimalist understanding of architectural elements and accents ensued in deeply contemplative as well as immaculate design frames that spoke about the enchantment of jute, yarn and cotton thread in the solo of Purvai Rai at Art Alive. Purvai’s Memory Graph compositions contained the power of devotion in design in the sequence of threading and arranging jute, yarn and cotton threads that had echoes of inner roots. The action of creating and expression both have a ritualistic focus.
“Design for me is born out of imagination and quiet discipline, I have always had an interest in the chakra,” she explains. “I feel the language of Indian design came from ancient design traditions. So I play with subtle abstraction continuously created around textile-related conversations. I explore colour, texture, pattern, and aspects of ‘textile language’, and keep an eye also on knotting. I use jute, yarn and cotton because it speaks of indigenous practices that go back into history. ”
Japneet Keith: Ceramics
Japneet Keith’s ceramic work
Marine rhythms, oceanic tides and beaches, all came to the fore in Japneet Keith’s urchin series at Gallery Espace. A NID graduate, Japneet creates works that echo the transience of nature’s eternal eloquence even as she celebrates Darwinian perfection of the shapes of her sea urchins.
The colour tones of her works, detailing and understanding of the zoological manifestations presented her as an Indian Athena in the world of ceramics. Her small spherical sea urchins have about them the grace and dignity of the whisper of the waves that wash the tides ashore.
Japneet shares, “Nature is at the heart of my pottery. Everything comes into motion when I am at the wheel. The clay I get from Australia is as important as what I am creating – it has a different texture and body qualities.”
Clay, for her, is both tactile and quirky. “it moulds my thought. It is rooted in the environment and enriched by my travels. My inspiration comes from forests and mountains and tide pools and the sandy beaches and the rush of the waves and the sea. A Humming Bird is as vital to my rhythm as the series of sea shell murals I create or the sea urchins. Finally, it’s about the pulse of the spirit that conquers.”
