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

Speakspace: Poetry from South Africa

 Two poems by Lebogang  Mashile, one of South Africa's most beloved poets.

Sonatina Mendes

                                             You and I 


You and I
We are the keepers of dreams
We mould them into light beams
And weave them into life's seams

You and I
Know life is not what it seems
We strip the fat from the lean
And find the facts in between
The visions we redeem
And the agony of choice
Yours is just a mind 
And mine,just a voice
But when we love
We love with a heat that rises like a song in flight
On the flesh of our backs
If it's love that we lack
Then we walk through indescision fading in fright
We ride the crest of intuition on the journey of this life

And by the hands of the infinite we hear the cries of rest
Weighed down by their intelligence submitting to this test
But you and I 
Push the boundary of reason
You and I 
Plot the mystery of seasons

You and I 
Paint this history to free men
Nothing can be stopped like you and I 

You and I
 We are the keepers of dreams 
We mould them into light beams
And weave them into life's seams

Still from the film "Cries and Whispers" by Ingmar Bergman

The green of words


I hear the sound of my mind
In darkness peppered with oceanic rumbles
Deeper than history
Lighter than air

An awakened mind is the thief of my sleep
I yawn,
Shake off the dust of ''slam poetry'' expectations
And relive the green of words
Where the world is no obstacle to my desire

The bold quiet honours me as midwife to poetry
Unpretentious
Unrelenting
Unexpected
Interpretations of the sliced days
That pass through this body

The dangerous safety of lined paper beckons
I hear myself respond
Seduced by the storyteller
I am inspiration