Art is at its best when it emerges without restrictions, when an artist isn’t skewed to working towards what will sell. Final year students of Jawaharlal Nehru Architecture and Fine Arts (JNAFAU), Hyderabad, Sarojini Naidu School of Arts and Communication (HCU), Hyderabad, Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda, and Kala Bhavana, Visva Bharti University, Shantiniketan, dabble with diverse ideas using a variety of media and techniques. The result is an interesting study of contemporary art.
Emerging Palettes, the ongoing exhibition at Shrishti art gallery, features two works each of 20 student artists. An everyday item like a roti becomes a tool of art in the hands of Naresh Suna from HCU, who places similar-sized rotis and paints different images on them — a king’s throne, a newborn baby, a quote by B.R. Ambedkar, to trigger a discussion on caste system. Roti as the unifying element conveys the artist’s thought process.
For Windows of Hope, Pallavi Majumder from Shantiniketan shows us four windows with a mosaic of patterns formed by seeds, burnt wires and sheets of plastic or glass marked by patterns created by burns. A possibility of a better world outside the window? Probably yes.
Monisha Mohanraj, from MSU, Baroda, paints two self portraits on rice paper. The self portraits are a journey of introspection and the inward journey brings about layers of personality. In the second self portrait, she includes a cat and refers to her own selfish side.
Md. Asgar Ali from JNAFAU, Hyderabad, takes self portraits a step further by etching on glass and then lighting it up artistically. The technique he terms ‘hatching’ shows distinct facets of his personality.
Discarded tyres are used creatively by Anila Kumar from HCU to show three different aspects of living with dreams. Within the circle of the tyres, with acrylic on paper, the artist shows what it means to have dreams of happiness, dreams of sorrow and finally to accept dreams as they are and stay with them.
Abhishek Narayan Verma of MSU toys with the idea of escaping from worldly problems showing an etching of a man on a hot air balloon hovering over the city’s skyline. A note in his hand gives an idea of his family problems. The escape isn’t easy as he holds on to IV fluids, a lifeline.
Aman Preet from Shantiniketan and Anil Xavier from HCU express through sculptures. The former draws from Bengal crafts and uses Dokra metal to carve sculptures of a child lounging, placing its feed on coir cot, while the latter draws attention through a fibre glass structure of an upturned form that’s caught in a box. HCU’s Harsha Valsan uses terracotta sculptures to juxtapose animal forms.
Other student artists dabble painstakingly with intricate lithographs and etchings with aquatint. Among them, HCU’s Harinathan Shinde shows an eye for detail as he etches a conceptual friendship between the predator and the prey, a tiger and a deer.
Sumit Sarkar uses a large cushion to bring alive the paintings and murals on the walls of his alma mater, Shantiniketan, and show an artist’s journey in the famed campus.
Emerging Palettes is organised by Shrishti along with Alliance Francaise and Goethe Zentrum and is on till August 12 at Shrishti, road no.15, Jubilee Hills.
