Andy Warhol

Artville artist of the day: Andy Warhol

Title: Queen Elizabeth II From Reigning Queens
Year: 1985
Medium: Prints and Multiples, screenprint
Size: 39.5 x 31.5 in. (100.3 x 80 cm.)

Andy Warhol (American, 1928–1987), born Andrew Warhola in Pittsburgh, PA, was an iconic and versatile Pop artist. After studying design at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, Warhol moved to New York City in 1949 to pursue a career as a commercial artist. Though successful, Warhol wanted to be an independent painter, and in the early 1960s began to create paintings based on advertisement imagery. Shocking in its embrace of "low art" and its detachment from emotion, his early work quickly brought him fame, as he produced the now infamous series of Campbell’s Soup Cans, Disasters, Electric Chairs, and celebrity portraits (Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy, and Elvis Presley were among his subjects), with commercial techniques such as screen printing and stenciling. As his fame grew, Warhol built a studio called The Factory on 47th street in New York City, and collected a group of eccentrics he called the "Superstars", with whom he created a number of experimental films, such as Sleep, Chelsea Girls, and Empire, which were often banned by the police for their vulgarity.

In 1968, Valerie Solanas, a former member of Warhol’s entourage, attempted to kill the artist and others outside of The Factory. Narrowly surviving, Warhol withdrew from his bohemian circle and occupied himself in the 1970s creating celebrity portraits, which brought him considerable earnings, but weakened his critical approval. With Gerard Malanga, Warhol also founded Interview magazine, which is still in print today. In the 1980s, however, Warhol’s work was revitalized by collaborations with younger artists, such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francesco Clemente, and Keith Haring, and he produced renowned series of paintings such as The Last Supper.

Warhol died in 1987 due to complications following an operation. As per his desire, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts was established after his death.

Courtesy: www.artet.com

#artvilleartistoftheday #andywarhol #screenprints #prints #art #artville 

Damien Hirst

Artville artist of the day: Damien Hirst

Title: Covenant
Year: 2013
Size: 53.54 x 53.54 in. (136 x 136 cm.)
Medium: Prints and Multiples, Silkscreen print with glaze and diamond dust

Damien Hirst (British, b.1965) is one of the leaders of the Young British Artists—a group of contemporary British artists, including Fiona Rae, Liam Gillick, Sarah Lucas, Ian Davenport, and Michael Landy—the winner of the 1995 Turner Prize, and, as of 2009, the wealthiest artist in history. He rose to fame after the success of two warehouse shows he organized featuring his friends and his own work; at his second show, advertising executive Charles Saatchi purchased Hirst’s A Thousand Years, which features a glass case enclosing a rotting head of a cow swarmed with flies. Saatchi promoted Hirst and the Young British Artists for several years, until the relationship ended in 2003.

Hirst’s work has generated enormous controversy, in part, for its morbidity and fascination with medicine, which is evident in several of his series: the encased dead animals in various states of preservation, the incorporation of butterfly wings into stained glass-like images, cabinets filled with pharmaceuticals, and diamond-encrusted skulls. A team of assistants help Hirst carry out his projects; his spot paintings and spin paintings are almost entirely the work of others. In the 1990s, Hirst was also a public figure for drunken and drugged spectacles, but he has since stopped drinking and smoking. In 2012, his works were exhibited at the Tate Modern in London, and his spot paintings were part of a world exhibition The Complete Sport Paintings 1986–2011 held by the Gagosian Gallery in 11 of its galleries simultaneously, from January 12 to February 18, 2012.

#artvilleartistoftheday #damienhirst #print #silkscreenprint #art #artville #diamonddust #contemporary
Courtesy: www.artnet.com

Jackson Pollock

Artville artist of the day: Jackson Pollock

Title: Ocean Greyness
Year: 1953
Size: 57 3/4 x 90 1/8 inches (146.7 x 229 cm)
Medium: Oil on canvas

Jackson Pollock was an influential American painter, and the leading force behind the abstract expressionist movement in the art world. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. Jackson Pollock's greatness lies in developing one of the most radical abstract styles in the history of modern art, detaching line from color, redefining the categories of drawing and painting, and finding new means to describe pictorial space.

Jackson Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming in 1912. His father, LeRoy Pollock was a farmer and later a land surveyor for the government. Jackson Pollock grew up in Arizona and Chico, California. During his early life, Pollock experienced Native American culture while on surveying trips with his father. Although he never admitted an intentional imitation or following of Native American art, Jackson Pollock did concede that any similarities were probably a result of his "early memories and enthusiasms."

In 1929, Jackson Pollock studied at the Students' League in New York under regionalist painter, Thomas Hart Benton. During early 1930s, he worked in the Regionalist style, and was also influenced by Mexican muralist painter such as Digo Rivera, as well as by certain aspects of Surrealism - a 20th-century literary and artistic movement that attempts to express the workings of the subconscious by fantastic imagery and incongruous juxtaposition of subject matter.

In November 1939, The Museum of Modern Art in New York City mounted an important Picasso exhibition entitled: Picasso: 40 Years of His Art, which contained 344 works of Pablo Picasso and his famous anti-war mural, Guernica. The exhibit led Pollock to recognize the expressive power of European modernism, which he had previously rejected in favor of American art. He began to forge a new style of semi-abstract totemic compositions, refined through obsessive reworking.

#artvilleartistoftheday #jacksonpollock #oiloncanvas #oilpainting #art #artville

Courtesy: www.guggenheim.org

Ernesto Neto

Artville artist of the day: Ernesto Neto

Title: animal nature

Year: 2013

Medium: 25mm corten steel

Size: 216 x 348 x 216 cm. (85 x 137 x 85 in.)

Ernesto Neto is known for his biomorphic sculptural environments. Originally inspired by the Brazilian Neo-Concrete movement of the 1950s and 1960s, Neto moved from hardedge iron sculptures to his signature pendulous nylon sacks filled with aromatic spices, lead, sand, and Styrofoam balls. Neto mixes the highbrow formalism of minimalism with the sociability and fun of relational aesthetics. Viewers are encouraged to poke, touch, and—in some cases—even walk through these plush organic forms. Neto has had solo shows at major art institutions around the world, including London's Institute for Contemporary Art, Site Santa Fe, Kunsthalle Basel, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. He represented Brazil in the 2001 Venice Biennale.

Courtesy: www.artnet.com

#artvilleartistoftheday #ernestoneto #art #artville #sculpture #cortensteel 

Antony Gormley

Artville artist of the day: Antony Gormley

Title: Cotch V
Year: 2010
Size: 33 3/4 x 25 7/8 x 24 7/16 in. (85.8 x 65.7 x 62 cm)
Medium: Cast iron

Antony Gormley is widely acclaimed for his sculptures, installations and public artworks that investigate the relationship of the human body to space. He was born in London in 1950. His work has developed the potential opened up by sculpture since the 1960s through a critical engagement with both his own body and those of others in a way that confronts fundamental questions of where human beings stand in relation to nature and the cosmos. Gormley continually tries to identify the space of art as a place of becoming in which new behaviours, thoughts and feelings can arise.

Gormley’s work has been widely exhibited throughout the UK and internationally with exhibitions at Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern (2014); Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia (2012); Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2012); The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (2011); Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2010); Hayward Gallery, London (2007); Malmö Konsthall, Sweden (1993) and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark (1989). He has also participated in major group shows such as the Venice Biennale (1982 and 1986) and Documenta 8, Kassel, Germany (1987). Permanent public works include the Angel of the North (Gateshead, England), Another Place (Crosby Beach, England), Inside Australia (Lake Ballard, Western Australia) and Exposure (Lelystad, The Netherlands).

Gormley was awarded the Turner Prize in 1994, the South Bank Prize for Visual Art in 1999, the Bernhard Heiliger Award for Sculpture in 2007, the Obayashi Prize in 2012 and the Praemium Imperiale in 2013. In 1997 he was made an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) and was made a knight in the New Year’s Honours list in 2014. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, an Honorary Doctor of the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity and Jesus Colleges, Cambridge. Gormley has been a Royal Academician since 2003 and a British Museum Trustee since 2007.

Courtesy: whitecube.com

Murali Cheeroth

Artville artist of the day: Murali Cheeroth

Title: Saint Clinique 2

Medium: Oil On Canvas

Size: 12 X 12 Inches

Year: 2009

Born in Thrissur, Kerala, Murali Cheeroth's art education include a BFA in 1992 and MFA 1995 from Shantinikethan, West Bengal and an advanced computer diploma in digital media. To quote the artist himself "...my working process is a kind of extraction system, that draws on tiny concerns about uber urbanization, frenzied globalization and the visual/virtual stimulation therein, and folds and unfolds them into another reality to simplify their characteristics and relationships in order to build a new visual experience that is clear and vivid"

His solo exhibitions include'Habitus' Sumukha art gallery,Chennai and Bangalore in 2010; 'Unmarked' solo preview at Viart gallery, New Delhi in 2009; Some selected group shows include 'Surviving sagas' Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre, presented by Ashna art gallery in 2010;'The masters corner' Museum gallery presented by the art journal, Mumbai in 2010;'If I Were A Saint' Shrine empire gallery, New Delhi in 2009; 'Ways of seeing' Galley soulflower and ICCR, Bankok , Thailand in 2009;

Murali Cheeroth has taught in CEPT- Ahmedabad, Kanoria Centre for Art- Ahmedabad, National Institute of Fashion Technology –Bangalore and Chennai. His engagement with these broad range of institutions is readable from his conceptual and figurative concerns. Among his collectors are many institutions, museums and private art collectors.He currently lives and works in Bangalore.

courtesy: shrineempiregallery.com

#artvilleartistoftheday #muralicheeroth #oiloncanvas #oilpainting #artville #art

T V Santosh

Artville artist of the day: T V Santosh

Untitled
Year: 2014
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 36 x 48 in | 91.4 x 121.9 cm
Through a silky, infra-red lens Santhosh creates emotional portraits in which the subject is, interestingly, part of the middle ground of the composition. Smoldering in reds and orange, the texture and color of their flesh evokes metal that glows orange as it’s heated. Tending towards imagery sourced from media coverage of terrorism and war, Santhosh provides us with provocative and challenging pieces. The inverse, monochromatic quality of the shadows and highlights allude to film negatives, suggesting an element of supervision and subjection by the media. Santosh is also an accomplished sculptor, using white fiber glass and scrolling neon messages to evoke the “banality of evil”—term coined by Hannah Arendt.

Images presented through high contrast pearly filters are characteristic of Santosh’s work. In a series of paintings from the late 2000s, red-orange and light bulb yellow is puddled with waxy, minty green impressions; the air is ablaze and the message is feverish. In the foreground “X”s and crosses and distant suns float in space as if between the subject of the piece and us the viewer, an apparition witnessed by both.

Born in Kerala, T.V.Santhosh earned his B.F.A. from Kalabhavan, Santiniketan, West Bengal, and his M.F.A. in Sculpture, from M.S.U, Baroda. Santhosh has exhibited his work at numerous international art galleries and museums. Prominent museum shows include 'India Xianzai' Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China, 2009; 'Passage to India, Parts I and II New Indian Art from the Frank Cohen Collection', at Initial Access, Wolverhampton, UK, 2008 and 2009; 'Aftershock, Sainsbury Centre, Contemporary Art Norwich, England, 2007; 'Continuity and Transformation' promoted by Provincia di Milano, Italy, 2007, 'GSK Contemporary' at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK, 2008 and 'The Empire Strikes Back' at the Saatchi Gallery, London, UK, 2010.The artist lives and works in Mumbai, India

Courtesy: www.saffronart.com
#artvilleartistoftheday #tvsantosh #oilpainting #art #artville

G R Iranna

Artville artist of the day: G R Iranna
Title: Untitled (Series - I lost the taste of God)
Year: 2012
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Size: 5.5 x 5.5 in | 14.0 x 14.0 cm

G R Iranna is an artist whose work transcends the boundaries of time and space. Born in 1970, its been barely ten years since he started painting professionally, and already his work is mature and profound.

Many of Iranna`s paintings depict pain as an abstract force that is translated visually in bruised textures and razor sharp cutting edges. His painting has always been far removed from an overriding, postmodern logic. Instead, Iranna uses the idealistic, representative and modernist language of Indian contemporary art. His most recent works are all visions of resistance. In just a glance, one can tell a sense of massive dynamic energy that pervades the surfaces. An energy that is fueled by torment and the struggle against it. Upon further inspection, one sees that these conflicts being played out on the surface are present also in those between one colour and another, between figure and hue, and between the crudeness and the expertise employed.

These works, set on canvas as well as tarpaulin, are symbolic of an important change in Iranna`s work. Maybe symbolic even of an attempt to break free from an establishment, or a style that is beginning to become claustrophobic. The large, fundamental figure that used to appear in Iranna`s early paintings emerges only twice in this later series, and though the artist continues to employ repeated motifs in his work, they seem now to be less figurative, leaning more towards form.

These pieces seem to have an almost romantic undertone: the result of Iranna`s attempt to break away from his own mould and reform his work. They cater to contemporary expectations, and reflect his need to pander many contradictory demands. Those of society as well as those of the artist himself.

In 1992, GR Iranna acquired his Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from the College of Visual Art, in Gulbarga. Two years later, he got his Master`s degree in painting from the College of Art, New Delhi. Between 1999 and 2000 he acted as artist-in-residence at Wimbledon School of Art, London.

Iranna`s first one-man show was held in 1992 at the College of Visual Art, Gulbarga. Since then, he has shown at: Delhi Art Gallery and Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai in 1995; Gallery Espace, New Delhi in 1998; `In the Shadow of Buddha` at Gallery Martini, Hong Kong in 1999; Wimbledon School of Art, London in 2000; Maulana Azad Centre for Indian Culture, Cairo in 2000 and The British Council & The Guild Art Gallery in 2001. Iranna has also participated in several group shows including at the Chitra Kala Parishad, Bangalore in 1990; Schoo`s Gallery, Amsterdam, Holland in 1995; Vedanta Art Gallery, Chicago, U.S.A. in 1998; `Icons of the Millennium` at Gallery Lakeeren, Mumbai in 1999 and `Black & White` at Art Today, New Delhi in 2000.

Iranna has received national and international recognition throughout his career. His awards include those at the All India Exhibition in Mysore and the College of Visual Art, New Delhi in 1992-92, the Bansi Parmimu Memorial Committee, New Delhi and the Delhi College of Art in 1993. In the same year, he won the MF Husain and Ram Kumar selection award at `In Search of Talent` by Vadhera Art Gallery, New Delhi. He has also been honoured in 1997 with a National Award from the Lalit Kala Academy and the AIFACS Award, at the show `50 years of Art in Independent India` in New Delhi.

courtesy:www.saffronart.com

#artvilleartistoftheday #acrylic #griranna #art #artville 

Reena Saini Kallat

Artville artist of the day: Reena Saini Kallat

Title: Falling Fables - 18
Year: 2012
Medium: Mixed media on canvas
Size: 42 x 72 in | 106.7 x 182.9 cm

Reena Saini was born in New Delhi, India in 1973. In 1996, she graduated from the Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy School of Art, Mumbai with a B.F.A. in painting. While at school, Kallat was the recipient of a Merit Scholarship. She is married to fellow artist Jitish Kallat.

Her practice – spanning painting, photography, video, sculpture and installation, often incorporates multiple mediums into a single work. She frequently works with officially recorded or registered names of people, objects, and monuments that are lost or have disappeared without a trace, only to get listed as anonymous and forgotten statistics. For instance, her work Falling Fables, which was exhibited at the maximum India exhibition at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, explores the architectural ruins of Delhi. One of the recurrent motifs in her work is the rubber stamp, used as an object and an imprint, signifying the bureaucratic apparatus, which both confirms and obscures identities.

courtesy: www.saffronart.com

#artvilleartistoftheday #reenasainikallat #artville #mixmedia #art

Jeff Koons

Artville artist of the day: Jeff Koons

Title: Gazing Ball (Demeter)
Year: 2014
Medium: Plaster and glass
Size: 124.1 x 86.7 x 107.6 cm. (48.9 x 34.1 x 42.4 in.)

Neo-Pop artist Jeff Koons (American, b.1955) inspires conflicted reactions to his over-sized sculptures of banal and sometimes shocking objects; some consider his work to be historically significant, while others view him as an attention-seeker who panders to the high-end art world. Educated at the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Maryland, he was initially supported by his career on Wall Street. By the early 1980s, Koons was able to establish a studio staffed by assistants.

He quickly cultivated a media persona by hiring image consultants and placing strategic advertisements in high-class art publications; his scandalous marriage to and subsequent divorce from the Hungarian-Italian porn star Ciccolina also brought much public attention. Most famous for enlarged objects such as Puppy and his huge sculptures of inflated balloons, Koons also works in series of paintings, prints, and collage, stating that he is attempting to make a body of work that anybody could enjoy.

Courtesy: www.artnet.com

Fred Tomaselli

Artville artist of the day: Fred Tomaselli
Title:Starling
Year: 2010
Size: 80 x 80 in. (203.2 x 203.2 cm)
Medium: Photo collage, acrylic and resin on wood panel

Fred Tomaselli makes exquisitely rendered paintings on wood panels, combining an array of unorthodox materials suspended in a thick layer of clear, epoxy resin. Medicinal herbs, prescription pills and hallucinogenic plants are combined with images cut from books and magazines: flowers, birds, butterflies, arms, legs and noses, for example, are worked into dazzling patterns that spread over the surface of the painting like a beautiful virus or growth.

Tomaselli sees his paintings and their compendium of data as windows into a surreal, hallucinatory universe. “It is my ultimate aim”, he says, “to seduce and transport the viewer in to space of these pictures while simultaneously revealing the mechanics of that seduction.” Tomaselli has also incorporated allegorical figures into his work – in Untitled (Expulsion) (2000), for example, he borrows the Adam and Eve figures from Masaccio’s Expulsion from the Garden of Eden (1426-27), and in Field Guides (2003) he creates his own version of the grim reaper. His figures are described anatomically so that their organs and veins are exposed in the manner of a scientific drawing. He writes that his “inquiry into utopia/dystopia – framed by artifice but motivated by the desire for the real – has turned out to be the primary subject of my work”.

Fred Tomaselli was born in Santa Monica, California in 1956. He has been included in numerous group exhibitions including ‘Open Ends’, MoMA, New York (2000), the Berlin Biennale (2001), the Liverpool Biennial (2002), the Whitney Biennial (2004), the 5th Site Santa Fe Biennial (2004, ‘Ecstasy’, LA MoCA (2006), ‘Prospect 1’, New Orleans Biennale (2008), ‘Universal Code’ Powerplant, Toronto and ‘The World in The Body’, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2009), ‘Between Two Worlds’, Kunstmuseum Thun and ‘The Beauty of Distance’, the 17th Biennale of Sydney (2010), CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2011), 1st Kiev Biennale Arsenale(2014). Solo exhibitions include Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, (1999), Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, Florida (2001), Site Santa Fe, New Mexico (2001), Albright-Knox Gallery of Art, Buffalo, New York (2003), Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2004), IMMA, Dublin (2005), The Rose Art Museum, Massachusetts (2005), the Aspen Art Museum (2009), Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York and Frances Tang Teaching Museum, New York (2010), Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas (2014).

Courtesy: whitecube.com

#artvilleartistoftheday #art #fredtomaselli #acrylic #acrylicandresinonwood #photocollage #artville

Gerhard Richter

Artville artist of the day: Gerhard Richter
Untitled
Medium: Oil on paper
Size: 10 cm x 13.5 cm
Year: 2010
Gerhard Richter is a German painter who originally trained in a realist style and later developed an appreciation for the more progressive work of his American and European contemporaries. Richter increasingly employed his own painting as a means for exploring how images that appear to capture "truth" often prove, on extended viewing, far less objective, or unsure in meaning, than originally assumed. The other common themes in his work are the elements of chance, and the play between realism and abstraction. Working alongside but never fully embracing a quick succession of late twentieth century art movements, such as Abstract Expressionism, American/British Pop art, Minimalism, and Conceptualism, Richter has absorbed many of their ideas while remaining skeptical of all grand artistic and philosophical credos.
Richter has maintained a lifelong fascination for the power of images and painting's long, uneasy relationship with photography: while either medium may claim to reflect or express reality truthfully, either ultimately suggests only a partial, or incomplete view of a subject.
Richter borrows much of his painted imagery from newspapers, or even his own family albums. Often he begins by mechanically projecting such an image onto the canvas, a technique for thinking about how images often seem to have a life of their own, like mysterious ghosts haunting our psyche. This act of visual compression, in which photography, projection, and painting merge to make a finished art work, suggests that all vision is a kind of conversion of the "real" into the "imaginary."

Courtesy: www.gerhard-richter.com

#artvilleartistoftheday #gerhardricter #oilpainting #oilonpaper #art #artville

Minal Damani

Artville artist of the day: Minal Damani
Title: I need a boat in my house
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 72" x 96"
Year: 2008
Born in 1979, Minal Damani received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in painting from the Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai, in 2000 and 2002 respectively. Working in a wide range of media, from ink and watercolour to gouache and acrylic, Damani’s works are an exploration in colour and form.

Stemming from a deeply autobiographical narrative, her works are peppered with images of stars, flowers, flying birds and other objects that make personal references to her environment. Each painting has a new pattern for the story which reveals the inner life of the 'self' and the hopes, optimism, dreams, opportunities, fears, pulls and pressures it experiences. Gradually, the visuals in Damani’s work changed from fantasy-like narratives to highly patterned visuals, in which the arrangement of images is done in such a way that they form an 'even -pattern' and thus give an abstract feel to the painted surface.

Damani’s solo shows include 'Drawing Lines' at Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, in 2008; and ‘Refilled’ at Gallery Beyond, Mumbai, in 2006. Her work has been also a part of several group shows, including 'Size Matters or Does it?' at Latitude 28, New Delhi, in 2010; ‘Evidentia' at Gallery Sumukha, Bangalore, in 2009; and 'Vicissitudes of the Constructed Image' at Tangerine Art Space, Bangalore, in 2009.

Damani was honoured with the ‘J.J. Teachers Award', by her alma mater in 2002, and also received the Human Resource Department’s Young Artist Scholarship from the Government of India, New Delhi, for 2001-03.
Courtesy: www.vadehraart.com

Vivek Vilasini

Artville artist of the day: Vivek Vilasini
Title:Unconstitutional
Year: 2012
Medium: Digital print on paper
Size: 68.5 x 34 in | 174.0 x 86.4 cm
Born in 1964, in Trishur, Kerala, Vivek Vilasini trained as a Marine Radio Officer at the All India Marine College in Kochi, and then obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Kerala University in 1987 before turning to art and studying sculpture from traditional Indian craftspeople.

In his work Vilasini examines our existing social structures, adapting various expressions of cultural identity prevalent in society today to raise questions about the continually changing global scenario that every individual struggles to keep pace with. Vilasini’s large-format photographs evoke delicate ironies that impact existing ideologies, and influence the cultural and social consciousness of the viewer.

Vilasini’s work has been exhibited in several solo shows including several editions of ‘Between One Shore and Several Others’ at Birds Gallery, Trivandrum, Arushi Arts, New Delhi, Sumukha Gallery, Bangalore, and the Visual Arts Gallery, New Delhi, in 2007-08; and at the Contemporary Art Gallery, Lalit Kala Academy, Kochi, in 2001. The most recent group shows in which his work has been featured include ‘Beyond the Form’ presented by Bajaj Capital Art House at the Visual Art Gallery, New Delhi, and Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, in 2009; ‘In Focus: Contemporary Indian Photography’ at Crimson - The Art Resource, Bangalore, in 2009; ‘Re-Claim/ Re-Cite/ Re-Cycle’ presented by Latitude 28 at Travancore Art Gallery, New Delhi, in 2009; ‘Metamorphosis: Change and Continuity in Indian Contemporary Art’ at PAC Gallery, Phyllis Weston-Annie Bolling Gallery and the Krohn Conservatory, Cincinnati, in 2009; ‘Bapu’ at Saffronart, Mumbai, in 2009; and ‘Who Knew Mr. Gandhi?’ at Aicon Gallery, London, in 2008. The artist lives and works in Bangalore.

courtesy:www.saffronart.com

Prajakta Palav Aher

Artville artist of the day: Prajakta Palav Aher
Title:Spreading
Medium:Acrylic & gesso on canvas
Size: 60" x 84"
Year: 2010

B.F.A. in Painting, Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai, 2000
M.F.A. in Portraiture, Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai, 2003
Prajakta, through her works, penetrates into the intermediate spaces, spaces between the inside and the outside, of middleclass households, dump yards, swimming pools and wedding pandals. She tries to paint every detail from the photographic references that she has collected over time.
The images she employs come from her own middleclass background and reflect its insecurities and complexities though they seem very simple and undisturbing at first glance. There are staircases decorated with plastic flowers; fake beautifying objects hanging outside the door; suitcases and airbags pushed onto the cupboard; newspaper stacks lying behind the wooden cabinets; old wall units filled with torn papers, documents, and covered with plastic sheets. Prajakta captures such moments of imbalance where she is very attentive about the details. She reveals the vulnerabilities of middleclass life through such confined and subtle moments.
Prajakta paints the detail with photographic precision but her works never become documentary in any sense. Rather, these objects transcend their present meaning and context, unveiling greater realities, and their formal effect provokes a sense of irony and quirkiness, which is omnipresent in her work. In her paintings she plays with various perspectives, creating images that subvert our understanding of everyday objects. Her paintings reflect surroundings filled with conflict and perseverance, reminiscent of the environs that Palav grew up in on the outskirts of Mumbai. The works often show slums, some of which have been ‘eradicated’ by multi-storeyed buildings, and local commuter trains, which are not much of a spectacle but a lifeline for the working class.
Prajakta Palav Aher lives and works in Mumbai.
Courtesy: vadheraart.com

Shanthamani Muddaiah

Artville Artist of the day: Shanthamani Muddaiah

Title: Back bone
Year: 2012 
Medium: Charcoal With Cotton Rag Pulp
Size: 915 x 82 x 52 cm 

Born in 1967 at Mysore, Karnataka, Shanthamani Muddaiah received her Bachelor’s Degree in Painting from the Chamarajendra Academy of Visual Arts (CAVA), Mysore and her Master’s from MS University, Baroda. She also did a course in Paper-making at Glasgow, Scotland and worked for brief periods as an art teacher and on conservation of wall paintings in India, before taking to her full time art practice. Exploring materiality within transcendental matter, her sculptures, often made of charcoal, resemble stone monuments, appearing stable and strong from a distance, but their fragility becoming apparent on closer inspection. The markings of wood are still borne by the black blocks, as traces of memory of the fire it consumed or that consumed it. The carbonized forms begin to reveal their frailty and the possibility of their disintegrating back into dust. Shanthamani, who has made rustic charcoal into a metaphor of what has been described as ‘lingering material manifestations’, has also worked on video, photography and other media. Recipient of National Junior Fellowship from Ministry of Tourism and Culture, and the Charles Wallace Scholarship for study in Glasgow, her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions at Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Chennai, Sri Lanka, Paris, Miami, Dubai, Norway and Tel Aviv amongst others. Her works are part of many private collections in India and abroad including the Venkatappa Art Gallery and the Government Museum, Bangalore. Shanthamani lives and works in Bangalore.
courtesy: staging.artslant.com
#artville   #artvilleartistoftheday #shanthamanimuddaiah #charcoal   #cottonragpulp #art