This year has seen a different stage in personal art
exploration. We (Maya and me) completed “Boundaries” an installation which was
part of the Goodman art festival during the ARTWEEK. It is a comment on the human encroachment of space,
virtual and physical. It’s a permanent display and Goodman Arts Centre were our
venue sponsors. Then came along Peregrination, which was an intense expression
for both us artist and our understanding of journeys. We also got supported by
the NAC for the same. During the exhibition we had some lovely workshops and
two of them for a special needs school. Both of us enjoyed that and we are
thinking of making it a more regular event in our lives. On the opening night
we both did not want to stand and mingle with the crowd and “explain” our
personal process and hence we took to doing a quirky start to the exhibition by
having a live painting installation which was site specific. It served the
purpose of entertainment and us not having to face the limelight. J
I thought I would take a break for a while and we knew we
had another big mural project coming up. We even set up our joint company to do
such public work. Yes Yellow Brush is now what the two of us own jointly. A
partnership requires lots of thought and understanding and more than that a
huge ability to give each other space and healthy criticism.
The break was cut short when my curator and good friend
Vidhya roped me into an exhibition themed on Buddha long after the due date. I had
lesser time than the other artists and was still reeling from the extensive “Peregrination”.
Vidhya also insists on pure paintings and hence I could not give her my mixed
medium work. I went back to traditional oils. I had fun I must admit and my
whole take is on saying it differently. With Buddha everyone does a face or a
hand. I have to move from the clichéd representation and hence in one I used colours
that are bright and unusual and was happy to have just his eyes and ears in the
painting, more on the Bodhi state of mind. The second one which was from a
photographers perspective was looking at Buddha from the back. The head which
along with the ears becomes an interesting focal point. Being such a laughter
maniac myself who loves talking endlessly about the Happiness program, it was
essential to have a lighter element and hence the floating Laughing Buddha was
what I rendered as a difference. It was a good opening night. Yet what I did
observe is unusual over confidence from first time and recently exhibiting
artists who tend to over price their work. A little research helps in such
cases. However this is when the creators ego steps in. Although very often
these people will take a huge cut when selling directly and hence creating a
complete hypocritical state in their own market standing. I wish them luck on
their endeavours and personal journeys.
Moving on Maya and I are now going to start our huge body of
work……we have been looking forward to getting this done. Its been months of
planning and I can’t wait to see the final product on our clients wall. Working
with Maya is always fun and we artists do enjoy our food so I look forward to a
lot of food exploration too. Stay posted will write soon again. In the
meanwhile enjoy these Buddha images. By the way, opening night saw my Bodhi do
the first sale.
