Powerful statements through art

Diverse themes and different styles exhibit the skills of 22 artists, from both India and Korea. Lalithaa Krishnan writes.

November 12, 2015 06:56 pm | Updated 09:01 pm IST

Lee Hyun-Hee’s ‘Sign of Memory’ is a splash of vivid green, blue and yellow featuring three children in anoraks standing on a flower-bedecked float topped by a peacock canopy. Photo : R. Ravindran.

Lee Hyun-Hee’s ‘Sign of Memory’ is a splash of vivid green, blue and yellow featuring three children in anoraks standing on a flower-bedecked float topped by a peacock canopy. Photo : R. Ravindran.

A brainchild of the Indian Art Museum in Seoul, Lalit Kala Akademi Regional Centre in Chennai and the Inko Centre, The Emerging Canvas III, is an exhibition of paintings and installation works of 11 Indian and 11 Korean artists whose talent has gained recognition in recent years.

With diverse themes ranging from ecological conservation to the need for a war-free planet, elaborated in both abstract and realistic styles, the artists have employed mixed media, oils, acrylic, watercolour, pencil on paper, wood engraving, C-print, ceramics and terracotta to create an effective impact.

Simple, yet striking, Thryambaka Karthik ’s ‘The Healers’ is conceptualised as four headless figures, pencil-shaded, seated and kneeling beside a prone form, a long strip of surgical gauze running over the top and bottom of the composition, its delicacy contrasted against a rough-textured jute border.

A sense of infinite space permeates A. Vijayakumar ’s 20-part multimedia collage. Here, a central human figure delicately balanced on a pyramidal fulcrum throws into relief the vast expanse of the universe projected through the nexus between human life and the elements, day and night, darkness and light.

Black and white minimalism powers finely-etched matrices that ideate wide-ranging subjects across the abstracts of Ryu Hee-Jeong, Moon Sung-Don, Kim Soo-Young and M. Mani. Jang Ji-Hye’s two works ‘Set About - W3 and W4’ articulate the artist’s anguished cry against the brutality of war as they picture a child at play, surrounded by soldiers. As they advance, guns drawn, the child is frozen in mid-play amidst discarded toys, in an attitude of surrender. Ryu Sun-Ho’s neatly structured forms suggest the planes of brown and black buildings and red-tiled rooftops in an urban landscape set off by blue-green foliage.

A. Vasudevan ’s watercolour ‘Precious Memories’ stands out for masterful technique and composition in its depiction of a swarm of brightly-hued butterflies fluttering around a man asleep on a chair. Flesh tones and shading of objects infuse this realistic oeuvre with life.

Vijay Pichumani ’s ‘The Mystical Waves II’ is an unusual work wherein rich, enmeshed detail begs to be studied up close. A bisected view of a tree stump with a mosquito fossil at the core is rendered in a combination of ‘pencil, trace from the tree, watercolour and fire’ to create concentric rings of wonderfully contrasted textures.

S. Potrarasan (ceramics) and M. Koilpitchai Prabhakar voice their ecological concerns through installation art. Prabhakar’s ‘Broken Food Chain’ has a stream of low-slung terracotta animal forms with elongated torsos, slinking forward. Animal themes continue in K. Yuvaraj ’s ‘Dogs’ Affection’ that capture canines in various moods and moments, Kumaresan Selvaraj ’s ‘Cetukku I & II’ transmits an X-ray effect via backlit laser engravings of fish anatomy and Selva Senthil Kumar ’s ‘Cats A-1’ in which the watercolour technique is expertly tweaked to convey the impression of another medium, namely ceramics, transposed onto paper.

While G. Gurunathan ’s ‘Seed and Forest’ in soft greens recreates cool, dense forests, Lee Da Yeon ’s pastel-hued abstracts ‘Hard Candy’ and ‘The Last Hug’ are sundae-topped with daubs of pink, orange and creamy white. Lee Hyun-Hee ’s ‘Sign of Memory’ is a splash of vivid green, blue and yellow featuring three children in anoraks standing on a flower-bedecked float topped by a peacock canopy. In studied contrast, Kang Ji-Hyoung presents two pristine all-white creations in ‘Music and Moment.’

Cho Jae-Na makes a powerful statement with ‘Everybody Hate’ which details a face with lips and eyes taped shut. The blurred areas of light in Hwang Min-Sun ’s ‘Bus- 1’, the swirl of colours defining Kim Seon-Yong ’s style and the starkness of ‘In The Dark Room’ by Kim Soo-Young explore contemporary issues. The exhibition is on at the Lalit Kala Akademi till November 15.

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