Polyphonies

The 10 artists invited for Polyphonies have been chosen with a great deal of insightful reflection. The selection was based on the different flavours and tones of their renditions, tones that helped in conjuring up myriad faces and aspects of cultural diversity of the land through a process of aesthetically communicated creativity. There is also a geographical mapping done through their works.

These post-independence Indian artists cross generations and go beyond the language of the early modernists, moving into the domain of contemporary art.

Each one of them creates work that is unique in expression and practice, yet thoroughly imbibed with the distinct spirit of ‘indianness’. Bridging the gap between the ancient and the modern, the then and the now, these artists echo the different voices that resonate the spirit of ‘India Now’.

The works of Ashim Purkayastha, Arpana Caur, Biju Jose, Baiju Parthan, Dhruva Mistry, Hema Upadhyay, KT Shivaprasad, Rajesh Ram, Ravinder Reddy.G, and Suhasini Kejriwal reflect the plural spirit, the cultural diversity and the multivocality of the Asian tiger, i.e. India.

Different and differing, the artist-sculptors featured in this exhibition could well find themselves described as keepers of the flame of Indian diversity. They keep the flame alive by expressing realities filtered through unique perspectives, by fusing together images to create unexpected and shattering insights, by moulding material into shapes that defy the regular, by making art that is real and fantastic, complex and elegant, of all humanity and of India - all at the same time. They achieve this end by defying conscription, by resisting the narrow inflexibilities of set definitions and by the sheer integrity of their work.

These 10 artists are the different sounds and hues of the wonder that India is. They are the diverse resonances that rise from her soil, the echoes of her enigmatic avatars. And hence, it is through their respective bodies of work that we map the polyphonic symphonies of India.

Hema Upadhyay
Hema’s work is mainly autobiographical, with much of it working to demolish the demonization or fetishization of self-portraiture. Like many contemporary artists she focuses on the razor’s edge that modern living usually is, with the pictorial concept playing an important role in her visual language. Her creative engagements with the different aspects of urban living make her work deeply evocative and introspective. Hema’s work is infused with a sense of catharsis, a feature that facilitates a sense of identification as well as angst in the viewer. Her images often touch upon feminist themes, a sense of dislocation, and an inner state of anxiety referenced within the context of violence and domesticity.
 

Dhruva Mistry
In Mistry’s work the niche is created by a body of work that focuses on individual experiences as seen through the filter of a perspective located within a western context. What makes this particular way of representation interesting is that while it does have tones of an occidental presence, the overall spirit is unequivocally rooted in an Indian cultural context. Many of the images he uses are drawn from the mythic and religious fabric of India, and they take on completely new facets when juxtaposed with experiences of the ‘other’. A common theme running through his works is the presence of subconscious archetypes. Mistry’s work is essentially layered, fusing together its solid cultural anchorage with a visual idiom that is universally valid and evocative.
 

Ashim Purkayastha
Many of Ashim’s works address issues of migration and survival. A free spirit himself, the sense of identification with the migrant is deep and apparent in much of his work, and temporal negotiations with any particular territorial context dominate much of his artistic idiom. Another predominant image in his work is that of the butterfly, once again a symbol of transience, metamorphosis, precarious beauty and change - all essential currents in the life of the twenty-first century citizen. As he mediates through labyrinths of human predicaments in his art, Ashim creates visions of disturbing conceits, surprisingly meaningful to all who engage with them.
 

Ravinder Reddy
Reddy’s work is a coming together of the traditional and the modern, and once together the combination moulded into a contemporary image that draws from the world it is located in. Another feature of his work is the distinct and deep sensuality that runs through it, although it exists more in terms of the covert rather than the overt, the subtle rather than the explicit. What is interesting to see is that this sensuality is seen almost always as a sense of well-being and fulfillment as opposed to excitement or arousal. Reddy’s work also has a strong conventionalizing impulse running through it, although it gets effectively countered by a sense of potential future renewal and regeneration - an aspect that further adds to its energy and enhances its creative vocabulary.
 

Biju Joze
Joze’s work draws largely from the long heritage of traditional Indian art forms, and balances it perfectly with the more radical movements of western aestheticism. The result is a unique and effective synthesis between the traditional and the eclectic. In keeping with the overall character of his work, even the media chosen by Joze incorporate options ranging from the conventional to the experimental, the metallic to the organic. His work remains real in the representations it seeks to breathe life into, relevant and issue-based in content, and deeply evocative in its language of visual imagery. It is the prime example of effectively communicated creative synthesis.
 

Suhasini Kejriwal
For Suhasini, the creation of art leads to the birth of a unique space where images function differently. Since this act occurs in an aesthetic mode, she believes that it leads to a slower and deeper process of absorption, one in which the engagement between the viewer and the viewed becomes much more real, valid and honest in terms of personal interpretation and meaning. Existing as an antithesis to the workings of instant gratification, the language of her art is therefore more than a mere visual projection; it is, instead, an involvement, an engagement, and an acknowledgement.
 

Baiju Parthan
The essential theme in Parthan’s work is the complete collapse of boundaries in all areas of contemporary human existence. An artist with a unique imagination, he has succeeded in creating a fascinating visual vocabulary that celebrates art while borrowing heavily from the rich symbolic heritage of Indian culture. With each work he goes further and further into the territory of metamorphisation, something he believes to be an inherent part of modern life. With a chosen language of archaic symbology, Parthan creates art that focuses on the various ‘selfs’ that are contained within each person, and of how frequent the interchangeability, the blurring of lines and hybridity of all these selves actually is.
 

Rajesh Ram
Rajesh is a painter and sculptor based in New Delhi. His visual language is one that expresses the tensions and anxieties of urban living, balanced as it is between the oft contradictory pulls between tradition and modernity. He communicates his message by using images and symbols entrenched in the familiar and everyday, and by juxtaposing them against different backdrops and contexts. What results is a work often jarring in the connotations it contains through it creative fusion. In Ram’s work one journeys from the known to the unknown, dealing simultaneously with the dilemmas and angst of modern existence.
 

Arpana Caur
Arpana is an artist who shares a uniquely symbiotic relationship with the world around her. While drawing from it the inspiration and essence to infuse her works with, she also gives back to it generously, and is connected to numerous social causes. Arpana often uses motifs from folk art in her visual vocabulary. In her work one witnesses the successful attainment of the extremely challenging task of bridging the gap between the specific and the universal, the unitary and the infinite.
 

KT Shivaprasad
Shivaprasad’s trajectory essentially explores the relationships between reality and illusion. Rooting himself in direct realism, his work blends together elements of abstraction and conscious pose, transforming his subject matter into potent imagery. Looking at the world around himself he lays out a mélange of disparate signs and symbols, arranging them in an intensely logical and original manner, and questioning the validity of modern existence as we know it. His works look at the many colours of life, and respect the global while remaining firmly anchored in the local. By representing humankind amidst its compelling predicaments and triumphs, Shivaprasad reveals the inherent profundity of mankind in visual terms.

Dr. Alka Pande
Curator
Winter 2007