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Art Musings is presenting the next exhibition of Smriti Dixit entitled Feasting & Fasting. The art of Smriti Dixit is born out of her experiences with everyday life. Drawing on small moments and intimate interactions, she fashions objects carefully, using handmade techniques, engaging in the tactility of her materials, becoming familiar with their specific properties. The artist says, We can touch with our eyes, see with our ears. Dixit’s art is an indelibly feminine procedure, finding its foundations in the process of its creation as much as in its final form. The activities which go into creating this diverse body of works are as varied as stitching, quilting, adhering and even distilling distinct elements which are brought together.

22.09.2012 – 15.10.2012

Art Musings opens their next exhibition on 28 July 2012 with a group show featuring renowned contemporary artists Baiju Parthan, Gopikrishna, Shibu Natesan, Raghava K K, Sudarshan Shetty and Bose Krishnamachari. The gallery will display important works from their archives, which are part of their permanent collection.

28.07.2012 – 25.08.2012

Sudarshan Shetty | Wet Paper | Oil On Canvas | 72" x 48" | 2005

Baiju Parthan | Yield 2 - Oursourced | Acrylic On Canvas | 6 X 12

Shibu Natesan | Untitled | Watercolour On Paper | 23" x 17"

Art Musings opens their next exhibition Quarto 2012 featuring Shruti Nelson, Viveek Sharma, Pradeep PP, and Ajay Dhandre. In Shruti Nelson’s mythical world, one is transported into dreamy, breezy landscape inhabited by figures and wild animals in their natural splendour. The use of paper on paper collage is emphatic and almost three dimensional in format. There is no pre-planned narrative, but a spontaneous abstract idea of the feel of a place she would like to evoke. In Viveek Sharma’s work, social, economic and political topics are conveyed to the viewer through messages and metaphors. This series entitled, ‘Freedom by Midnight’ are inspirations drawn from the aftermath of the great freedom struggle that the people of India experienced together with its leaders. Ajay Dhandre investigates the dawning of an era of revolutionary experiments. Humans morph into cyborgs, the line between biology and technology starts to blur. The seamless merging of intelligent machines with organic life gives rise to a new hybrid reality, indicating an evolutionary step into the future of human history. Pradeep PP graduated from JJ School of Arts in 2008. He is the recipient of the Kerala Lalithakala Academy Award. Through his paintings, Pradeep tries to depict the deterioration of traditional life, the fast changing social and cultural epoch, and the loss of human values due to an overpowering invasion of urban life style.

28.04.2012 – 20.05.2012

Viveek Sharma | Life on Fast Track | Oil on Canvas | 48” x 60"

Viveek Sharma | Freedom by Midnight – 1 | Oil on Canvas | 48” x 24”

Shruti Nelson | Untitled | Mixed Media on Paper | 36” x 36”

Shruti Nelson | Untitled | Mixed Media on Paper | 19” x 13” | 2012

Ajay Dhandre | Cyborg – C60 | Watercolour & Pencil on Paper | 60” x 66”

Ajay Dhandre | Cyber Horse-H40 | Watercolour & Pencil on Paper | 30” x 20”

Art Musings is presenting the debut solo exhibition of Nandan Purkayastha, entitled Monochrome, where the young artist is exhibiting intricately detailed pen and ink works on paper. The series is based on the ancient custom of Durga Puja. The paintings offer a rendering to the process through which the purpose evolves. From preparation to packing, it is more a feeling and living of the art and harmony than religion. The series takes one through the entire process from creation, devotion, celebration to immersion. The exhibit becomes a means of altering “dust thou art and unto dust thou returns” by conveying how an idol can never be the means of exalting spirituality. It is perhaps one of the most endearing visual celebrations. The idols of Durga are sculpted from clay and reach their end by dissolving into the river-beds, a yearly routine, time-bound. Yet, the lessons that one learns and the sentiments that one attaches, the belief one holds and the craft one creates, is timeless.

06.03.2012 – 15.04.2012

Nandan Purkayastha | Glass Blowers - 4 | Pen & Ink On Paper | 30 X 58 | 2011

Nandan Purkayastha | People Having Prasad | Pen & Ink On Paper | 28 X 60 | 2011

Nandan Purkayastha | Glass Blowers - 3 | Pen & Ink On Paper | 30 X 62 | 2011

Nandan Purkayastha | Building Up The Pandal- II | Pen & Ink On Paper | 21 X 29 | 2012

Art Musings is participating in the India Art Fair, in New Delhi, showcasing 12 artists. Sakti Burman’s paintings evoke the look of a weathered fresco, using a marbling effect, achieved by blending oils with acrylics, and employing pointillism. Anjolie Ela Menon’s art incorporates diverse cultures, with traces of Greco-Roman and Byzantine traditions. Her works juxtapose the classical icon and the popular image. Nalini Malani is a multimedia artist whose practice encompasses painting, projected animation, video and film. She is displaying reverse paintings from the Alice series. Baiju Parthan, an inter-media artist, works with traditional media of painting as well as digital technology based installation art. He is showcasing a suite of small paintings. Raghava K K’s large painting is inspired by the events and forces that created independent India, in which he creates his own version of history through stories and not facts. Gopikrishna’s surrealistic paintings appear as fairytales where one can witness the ordinary and the impossible, unity and solitude, illumination and darkness. Nilofer Suleman’s work is inspired by Indian typography and street graphics. Her work is a coalition of styles that take Indian Graphic Culture onto a contemporary platform. Jayasri Burman weaves the decorative and design element of the folk idiom into the intricate patterns of her work, without losing the natural charm and naiveté. Maya Burman’s paintings have a tapestry like effect. The details of Indian miniature painting and French art nouveau tradition merge in her art. Nandagopal does narrative sculptural work in copper and brass. His work is steeped in tradition yet retains a contemporary sensibility. In Viveek Sharma’s work, social, economic and political topics are juxtaposed and conveyed to the viewer through metaphors. Sharma includes himself in the work by way of a self–portrait, forming an integral part of his narrative. Smriti Dixit’s palette consists of textured fabrics and plastics. She embraces the processes of experimentation and creation to communicate the concepts of rebirth, recycling and renewal.

25.01.2012 – 29.01.2012

Viveek Sharma | Making Of Rama | Watercolour on Paper | 22” x 30” | 2011

Smriti Dixit | Bird Nest | Mixed Media | 39”x 19”x 9” | 2011

S H Raza | Jeevan Pravah | Acrylic On Canvas | 100 x 100 cms | 2012

Sakti Burman | Krishna on a Peacock | Oil on Canvas | 9" x 11" | 2011

S.Nandagopal | BirdCatcher | Silver Plated Copper-Brass and Bell Metal | 28" x 15" x 6” | 2011

Raghava K K | Remote Chord Progressions | Watercolour on Paper | 42” x 30” | 2011

Nilofer Suleman | Padma Laxmi Evergreen Studio | Acrylic on Canvas | 45” x 49” | 2011

Nalini Malani | Alice thru the Looking Glass (Copper Brain Map) | Reverse Acrylic And Enamel Painting On Acrylic Sheet | 23" x 30” | 2011

Maya Burman | Blanket of Flowers – 1 | Watercolour, Pen & Ink on Paper | 10” X 10” | 2011

Gopikrishna | Man and Father in – Law Feeding a Strange Bird | Oil on Canvas | 41” x 35” | 2011

Baiju Parthan | Street- View- Study- 1 | Acrylic on Canvas | 12" x 12" | 2011

Anjolie Ela Menon | Girl with Coloured Scarf | Oil on Masonite Board | 12” x 8” | 2011

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Loss for Words, curated by Avni Doshi, features artists Radhika Khimji, Tushar Joag, Chitra Ganesh, Nalini Malani, Sarnath Banerjee, Adip Dutta, Raghava K K and Tara Kelton. The exhibition Loss for Words emerges from a passage in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’, where the author describes a bout of amnesia that besets an imaginary village. In an attempt to protect their own knowledge, they begin to label everything, until the activity of archiving every bit of information they can becomes their sole preoccupation. In this show, the curator Avni Doshi has invited artists to consider such a situation, where the names and notions of things begin to unhinge. What does this mean for history, for memory and for the way we experience objects?

12.01.2012 – 25.02.2012

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Art Musings is presenting a solo exhibition of Alibaug-based artist Nikhil Chaganlal entitled 50 Revolutions around The Sun on 5 December 2011. The opening coincides with the artist’s 50 birthday, and to celebrate it, the show features 50 acrylic works on Masonite board, depicting his famed portraits. Says Chaganlal, “By exploring the faces, I embark on a journey into the innermost soul of the subjects of the portraits I create – known and unknown. I struggle to create a direct dialogue between my work and the viewer, thus producing an expression in each of the 50 faces that is unique and typical for this particular subject.” Over the years, Chaganlal has developed a unique technique of painting on Masonite. He uses acrylic combined with oil paints and chemical sealants. He almost always paints at night by candlelight, giving his work a gentle luminosity. The entire process is time consuming – the works are multi-layered, with each layer needing to dry before he can work on it again. Once the layers have reached a significant impasto look and feel, the work is ready to be sealed chemically rendering the work 100% waterproof and scratch resistant to any kind of wear or damage.

05.12.2011 – 07.01.2012

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Art Musings opened their exhibition, Exquisite Cadaver on 20 October 2011 with a solo exhibition by Raghava K K. This is Raghava’s third solo exhibition with Art Musings after the very successful Brooklyn Bound R-Train in 2009 – 10 and Drawn and Quartered in 2008. Says Raghava K K of this current body of works, “Exquisite Cadaver is a series of artwork that has arisen from a recent diasporic dilemma. I perform many roles – artist, Indian, American, father, husband, parent, child, student, teacher. Even within the art world itself, I am a thinker, a philosopher, an ingénue, and also a seller of beauty, a businessman, a politician. So fragmented is my identity, that I find it rather caricatured to identify with any one predominant role. Exquisite Cadaver is a game that represents a more complex search for identity and truth. Now, I play exquisite cadaver with my fragmented selves, creating a series of mythological characters, borrowing from tradition, history, and even my own nostalgia. Over the last year, each of these works has been created simultaneously in parts, fragmenting the storyline that runs through the series. Through this body of works, I am creating the mythology of the post-post-contemporary diasporic Indian, one that becomes coherent only in its entirety.”

20.10.2011 – 30.11.2011

Art Musings opens their next exhibition ‘Graceful Silence’ featuring Bengal-based artist Lalu Prasad Shaw showcasing 40 works in tempera. This is Lalu Prasad Shaw’s second solo show in Mumbai with Art Musings after ‘Sepia’ Notes in 2007. The artist draws inspiration from nature and the milieu surrounding the great Bengali middle class, often depicting scenes from his own life onto his canvas. His works are highly stylized portraits of Bengali women laying emphasis on his subject’s physical characteristics. Capturing the expressions of his subjects perfectly with the greatest economy of line and colour, each of Shaw’s paintings has an intimate feel to it. An immensely gifted artist and print maker, Shaw’s work is notable for its smooth synthesis of disparate stylistic elements. Influenced by the pre-independence Company School of Art, the traditional Kalighat Pat and the Ajanta cave paintings, Shaw’s works, mainly executed in gouache or tempera, have a very still, well-composed and smooth exterior. His style is unique and modern in its adaptation of academic and traditional Indian formats.

23.09.2011 – 18.10.2011

Lalu Prasad Shaw | Woman with Jasmine Flowers | Tempera on Paper | 20” x 15” | 2011

Lalu Prasad Shaw | Woman in the Green Sari | Tempera on Paper | 20” x 15” | 2011

Lalu Prasad Shaw | Woman in Striped Sari | Tempera on Paper | 20” x 15” | 2011

Lalu Prasad Shaw | Sringar | Tempera on Paper | 20” x 15” | 2011

Lalu Prasad Shaw | Lady and the Blue Moon | Tempera on Paper | 21” x 15’’ | 2011

Lalu Prasad Shaw | Grace | Tempera on Paper | 20” x 15” | 2011

Lalu Prasad Shaw | Blue Mood | Tempera on Paper | 21” x 14” | 2007

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Art Musings opened there current exhibition features 5 renowned sculptors. Works in myriad mediums include bronze, brass, fibreglass, silver-plated copper and bell metal. Satish Gujral’s bronze sculptures have a fluid energy. This sense of movement, combined with the inherent strength of the material, gives the works a sinuous form. The use of patina and colour in the works create a subtle and aesthetic synergy. Nandagopal’s narrative sculptural work in copper and brass constitutes one of the most important collections in contemporary Indian sculpture. While Nandagopal is an artist steeped in the traditions of his country, his work has a contemporary sensibility that appeals to an international taste. Paresh Maity’s works are typical of his style – dynamic, strong and arresting. The bold lines, the piercing gaze and the painting over the sculptures give them a unique identity. Paris-based Sakti Burman’s sculptural works are almost three-dimensional translations of his paintings. The works have a sensuous languid fluidity, creating a world of fantasy, fable and poetic harmony. Radhakrishnan is a modernist who recharges age-old sculptural processes with a new sensibility. The artist adopts neither a referential avant-garde approach nor a derivatively tribal folk style; instead, his style seems to spring from the form he seeks to convey, and uniquely suits its subject. The exhibition continues till 14 September 2011.

17.08.2011 – 14.09.2011