Dr Sudhir Patwardhan A retrospective 29th evening NGMA Mumbai

Dr Sudhir Patwardhan
A retrospective
29th evening
NGMA
Mumbai

Wandering Violin Mantis | Nibha Sikander

About the Exhibition

The team at TARQ is delighted to present Wandering Violin Mantis– Nibha Sikander’s first solo exhibition. In this exhibition, Sikander expands on her growing practice of looking at and recreating various species from nature, some real and some imagined. The artist uses layer upon layer of intricately cut out paper to create form after form of moths, mantises and birds, each one meticulously assembled in her studio in Murud-Janjira.

This exhibition focuses on Sikander’s observations of a variety of insects and other creatures that surround her. Fascinated by nature since childhood, and more particularly since moving to her current home, the artist began experimenting with making birds in her medium of choice – paper. The paper, according to her, mimics nature in its versatility – soft, stiff, malleable and flexible, almost like wings, feathers and antennae. In some of her works, Sikander delves deeper into her engagement with her subjects, deconstructing, and even abstracting the individual elements of the bird or insect that she is recording.

In his catalogue essay, Ranjit Hoskote says of Nibha’s work “Wrought with unerring accuracy, and with a heightened attentiveness to delicate and often elusive detail, Sikander’s moths and birds testify to the dazzling enchantment of the natural world as well as to the magic of taxonomical science. Presented in segments, as a row of disjecta membra laid out from wing to beak and head, her birds make a graphic transition from field guide to portrait gallery. They come across, not primarily as representatives of a species, but as sharply individual denizens of a world menaced by predators, surly winds, changing weather patterns.”

About the Artist

Nibha Sikander (b.1983) has done her Bachelors in Visual Arts (2006) and Masters in Visual Arts (2008), both specialising in painting, from the Maharaja Sayajirao University, Vadodara. Since her graduation, she has been part of several group exhibitions, some of which include ALCHEMY: Explorations in Indigo, KasturbhaiLalbhai Museum, Ahmedabad (2019); Beyond Borders, curated by the CONA Foundation at the Whitworth Gallery/Museum, Manchester, England (2017-18); A New Space, Nazar Art Gallery, Vadodara (2016); Back to College, VADFEST, Faculty of Fine Arts, Vadodara (2015); A Construal of Mourning and Rage, Emami Chisel Art, Kolkata (2014); Group show at Studio X, as part of the Paradise Lodge International Artist Residency, Mumbai (2013); Beauty and the Beast, Matthieu Foss Gallery, curated by Anne Maniglier, Mumbai, (2011); Show Girls!, Strand Art Room Gallery, curated by Anne Maniglier, Mumbai (2009); From our Cabinets to the Museum, Open Eyed Dreams Gallery, curated by Aparna Roy, Kochi (2009); and Class of 2008, Art Konsult Gallery, curated by Bhavna Khakkar, New Delhi, (2008-09)

She has taken part in residencies like Paradise Lodge International Artist Residency, Lonavala, Mumbai (November 2013); Sandarbh International Artists Residency Programme, Jaipur (November 2012); and Residency at the American School of Bombay, Mumbai (March - May 2010)

She is the recipient of the Nasreen Mohamedi Scholarship, Maharaja Sayajirao University, Vadodara, 2004-2005. Nibha currently works and lives in Murud-Janjira and Mumbai

Preview: Thursday, 28^th November 2019 | 6:30 pm – 9:30 pm

11:00 am – 6:30 pm | Tuesday – Saturday | Closed on Public Holidays

For Images and Further Enquiries Contact Vanessa Vaz: press@tarq.in or +91 22 6615 0424

Address: F35/36 Dhanraj Mahal, C.S.M. Marg, Apollo Bunder, Colaba, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400001

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Open ⋅ Closes 6:30PM

Phone: 022 6615 0424

Altruism of Lines Solo by Yashwant Deshmukh ,Curated by Prabhakar Kamble

Altruism of Lines 

Solo by Yashwant Deshmukh

Curated by Prabhakar Kamble

Yashwant Deshmukh is a contemporary conceptual artist, born in 1963,  growing up in Akola, Vidarbha, in the scorching interiors of Maharashtra. He graduated with a BFA from Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai in 1988 . In this exhibition he presents works from 2007 to 2019. It’s his short journey with his works. In the span of his career of thirty years Yashwant made various crossings between figuration and symbolic abstraction. He accentuates the lyrical and meditative elements of the object, and preserves the resonance in a monochromatic painterly treatment. He brings it with his personified ways that demonstrate his bounteous visualitics that proves it’s crest of minimalism. In fact it is a maximization of minimalism. Minimization is not to be the least nor is it for the emptiness, moreover it is an actuality and vitality. How would he forget the ascendancy of his village life, the experiences that left a deep imprint on his mind whilst building his life . Vidarbha is an extremely hot region with low rainfall. Until the age of twenty a boy who had never left his village and seen the outer world and thus never obliterated his deep interest in his in village life in later life and art. His expression is as clear and as simple as he lives and it exists with its individual and an exclusive identity.

Artist Yashwant Deshmukh

The extensive moorland under the scorching hot sun that is dilated straight to the horizon, in between is the sporadic appearance of the Acacia and Neem trees that breaks the horizon; the houses arise from the land itself and stand as the globe becomes the textured walls of the vista. There is a special kind of extinction throughout the scorching afternoon in the field, it is a different kind of quiescence. Sometime it is secluded from people. Habitations of small houses, sparse trees, deep arid bottoms of the well, when you peek into such deep wells you can experience a particular kind of eerie darkness, and silence in it sometimes it is haunted too. In this scenario underneath the roof of the immense blue sky and the desert gives you the realisation of your insignificance. This realisation calms you and it can push you to explore and discover yourself. What could be the end of life? The death? What would be the situation after death? Is it the same calmness and peace that will be there after death? It is the same voluminous vacuity? These experiences and consciousness of dialogue within ones self makes a balance between sphere of consciousness and context of visual expressions. His direct and indirect living within this realm endears in his art.

The works that you are seeing in this exhibition are not a straight trajectory of practice as you may perceive them to be, Yashwant made many crossings to reach here, after graduating from Sir J.J. School of Art he was experimenting with many art forms also he had a great influence of typical style of JJ's schooling, that he later refused to pursue . Initially he had done experimentation with all the forms including figurative, abstraction, still life, portraits. The change and the search within is the identity of a rational and logical mind. This logic is the beginning of wisdom. While walking to this path of wisdom and in search of self he turns to recall his roots where he spent memorable life moments at his village where he gets his source of fascination. It carries ingrained associations, for him, such as the hayrick, anthill and the grain store. He has done a solo show on the subject of the grain store. One can imagine how quotidian objects can play the impactful and important role in his practice and in discourse after seeing Yashwant’s work. The experience from the terrace in the dark night, the moonlight lightens the trees and the small houses; only the brighter edges are visible in the dark; it is the combination of line space and form in the atmosphere. Such frames live in depth of his mind. In daily life somebody feels the subject, somebody finds the content but Yashwant gets forms and those forms are enough to become a painting. Usual  common objects come in his art and it become uncommon and spectacular. Kites, human figures, pot, cycle, instruments, houses and many objects are the elements of his work. His work is born through his way of his seeing and experiencing the objects and surroundings. It matters, because I can see such things everyday, though I can not experience them like him. His observation and understanding is specific towards it so he sees it particularly.

Curated by Prabhakar Kamble

Yashwant never needs anything else to represent his objects other than the line, and limited simple colours, it is fulfilled by it only. He doesn’t rely on any other support for it. his visual patterns are very simple but exclusive and significance sensitization of his feelings. Only a form/ object can be the effective subject of painting for him. A rhythm of line, a construction and deconstruction of form, a single colour are enough as elements to construct a strong visual image. The object, form or a line this is the only content and context of his work. How it seems to him is more important, the feeling, emotions within it are important, and this feeling keeps exclusiveness in his art. He denies all the natural sources and effects on the elements like light, shadow, its volume, velocity; he wipes it out, nurtures it in his own way and simultaneously he brings the new image within it. At the same time he breaks the regular image while upgrading the same with a new form which is a key factor of his expression. The original form lifts slightly from the surface and separates it from the background with simple line-plays becoming the mysterious magic of wealthier visuals as a painting. These outer lines and forms, invisible movements of the plains slowly led me to discover varied forms within hidden spaces. The interrelation between form and space kept on adding new dimensions to his paintings.

Prabhakar Kamble 

Mumbai

14 November 2019

NGMA MUMBAI

National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai

National Gallery of Modern Art

Sir Cowasji Jehangir Public Hall

M. G Road, Fort Mumbai - 400032