Theen Tamasha Project: An Embrace of Belief for a friend

Sonatina Mendes is a member of our group and a friend and loved one for all of us who know her. Originally from Goa, she now lives and works in Baroda. As a woman artist desiring to live independently, safety and security have become major issues of concern that disallow the older traditions of freedom that artists enjoyed in this city in the past. It has also become increasingly difficult to procure rented accommodation in Baroda which is suitable as studio spaces. Every 11 months renegotiations of rent occur and women tenants face perpetual harassment to move out at short notice. It is for all these reasons and many more that we have bonded together to encourage  our friend Sonatina,  to take up the challenge of building a studio-home.

Spear headed by Rekha Rodwittiya and Surendran Nair who are handling this venture of building the studio-home for Sonatina, Theen Tamasha and other friends and colleagues are choosing to be collectively involved with this process as well. We as artists through the donation of our work,  have over the years constantly supported countless efforts to raise funds for numerous causes, and so we thought it is imperative to do something for someone within our own art community : for a friend who requires assistance and support, and to do it as a gift of belief.

Sonatina owns a plot of land of 1300 sq feet in Baroda, gifted to her by her parents who are settled in Goa. A studio home of 2400 sq ft  (ground plus 1^st & 2^nd floor) has been designed by Narendra Joshi who is working free for this project. The studio-home is being built under the supervision of Sailesh Mistry who has reduced his fee for this project. Uday Joshi and Kamlesh Patel are also serving this project  without accepting any labour fees for their work and consultancy. The list is long of those who are putting in their efforts to make the spirit of the collective,  realize this project. However for reasons of privacy  to those who are extending their support to this project, no donor friends name will be disclosed.

A group of artist friends from Baroda have already sold a work each, (through their respective galleries,  who waived their commission fee as a gesture of solidarity to this fund raising effort), and the entire proceeds of these sales have been given to this project.

The appeal we are making on our blog Theen Tamasha (and Friends) is to have a sale of works of Sonatina Mendes, through this blog space. Our target is to raise 20 lakhs which is the required amount to complete this studio-home. Every bit of help will add up and every gesture will be received with the deepest of gratitude.  We therefore fervently make this appeal to each of you with the hope that you will join us in contributing your support to our project. We also request you to help us to generate an interest for this endeavour by disseminating this appeal to those who you may believe to be empathetic to embracing such an idea as a collective project. All the sales will go directly to Sonatina Mendes. The unframed artworks will be packed and couriered by a reputed and established service, and the cost of all Indian posting will be undertaken by Theen Tamasha & Friends. The entire fund raising project and all the related modalities to this venture are personally being supervised by Rekha Rodwittiya & Surendran Nair.

The system we are proposing to follow is that the moment we receive a confirmation of a sale we will immediately remove that specific work/s from the list presented as available works. As mentioned earlier absolute privacy will be maintained and no names of those who support this project will be revealed, unless otherwise desired. We are deeply hopeful that many of you will open your hearts and embrace this idea with your support.

A list of the works are given below.

Please Note: Payments are accepted by Demand Draft of Cheque in favour of Sonatina Mendes

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Paintings available!

KIM KYOUNGAE 

SONATINA MENDES

KARISHMA D'SOUZA

MALAVIKA RAJNARAYAN

Artists camp at Sasangir

Sonatina and I were invited to an artists' camp at Sasangir and spent six days exploring the beautiful forests of the Sasangir Wildlife sanctuary. Although the main attraction of this sanctuary is the fact that it is the last home of the Asiatic lion, which is down to only 411 lions, the specialness of the experience came from spending time discovering all the wonderful flora and fauna that thrives in the forest. There is absolute truth in the statement that Nature is the ultimate teacher, because in the six days of observing the changing patterns of trees and learning about the adaptation abilities and behaviour of the animals, I felt that we as humans do little with our intellect  to live our lives to its maximum potential and are often embroiled in trivialities that are of no consequence to our role in the larger context of the earth we inhabit.  

The images of tender leaves shooting on dry teak trees, the white lilies in full bloom in an otherwise arid surrounding, the call of the deer warning the forest that danger lurks near, the song of the Indian Pitta as it hops from a rock to a branch and the quiet yawn of the lion  that seems to keep everything at a balance- all this continues to play in my mind as I traverse through the cacophony of traffic in a concrete jungle.

Malavika Rajnarayan

Tribute to Louise Bourgeois

I have often wondered what it must be like to live through almost an entire century; even more, to view art as it happens, through a 100 hundred years! Louise Bourgeois almost did both of the above, but more importantly, she made her mark and has claimed a space in art history that will exceed all timelines.

As menacing as her Maman spider looks, it equally accommodates an openness to shelter and to nurture - ideas that the sculptor often evoked in relation to her own mother and in the larger purview of femininity.

Louise Bourgeois died yesterday in Manhattan. This New York Times article summarizes her life and career.

Malavika Rajnarayan

The power of language

I'm reading Toni Morrison's Beloved. Searching for more of her writing, I googled her name and came across her Nobel lecture in 1993. What an outstanding piece that's all about language!

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1993/morrison-lecture.html

Malavika Rajnarayan

Mullings from Mumbai

One of the many advantages of being located in Baroda is its proximity to Delhi and Mumbai, more so to the latter. Even in the peak of summer vacations in India, it is not very difficult to find an economic solution to get to Mumbai to spend a day visiting galleries. My friends and I often take-off on such one-day trips to be able to look at art, in the flesh and in the space that it is presented for viewing. 

The exhibition of selected works of Gieve Patel from a span of thirty years of his career at Gallery Chemould exemplifies the process of art-making where observation and articulation are sieved through the core of human essence to evoke poignancy. The manner in which paint gets transformed into the wall that seems to converse with the scribe and the labourer in "The Letter Home" brings me back to contemplate the fundamentals of how to paint. In "The Stroll", the man carrying the child on his shoulder possesses the inherent power and vastness of the city that he strolls through and tenderly carries the innocence of the child as the city carries the heart of every individual who inhabits its space. Each painting seems to emit a unique quality of light which takes one to examine the uniqueness of Gieve Patel's palette. The green  in a painting of a cyclist in the field, or the brick red in "Highway" or even the grey sky in "Letter Home" make the paintings magical.  

As I looked out of the window of the local train, journeying my way from Churchgate to Borivali, I could only see more of Gieve Patel in the garment tailoring units that we were passing, a mother and child sharing a snack at the station, the towering skycraper close to Bandra.... 

Recommended reading: Article by Ranjit Hoskote

Malavika Rajnarayan

Open Studio: Theen Tamasha and Friends

Theen Tamasha and three friends displayed their work at an Open Studio on the 22nd of April 2010 at B-44 'Oasis', Sama, Baroda (which happens to be Malavika Rajnarayan's studio apartment shared with Lee Hayan, a graduate student at the Faculty of Fine Arts M.S.University of Baroda).

The decision to invite friends and artists to view the works of Kim Kyoungae, Malavika Rajnarayan, Sonatina Mendes, Karishma D'souza, Kim Seol A and Lee Hayan, was made only the previous evening and everybody got down to clicking cellphone buttons, text messaging, telephoning, printing out statements and other presentation material and by 4 p.m on a scorching summer afternoon, tea and snacks were served as people began to visit the studio. To quote  a text message from a follower of this blog: "They came, they saw and they definitely had plenty of water @ the 'Oasis'".

Kim Seol A is a South Korean postgraduate student in the Painting department at the M. S. University of Baroda and will be graduating in 2011.  Lee Hayan is also from South Korea, and will be graduating next month, with her degree show in about 2 week's time. We will introduce you to their work soon.

Malavika Rajnarayan