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Art Exhibition

Gallery Blueprint 12 presents artworks from South Asia at India Art Fair 2017

Bangladesh – India – Nepal – Sri Lanka

At the ninth edition of India Art Fair, gallery Blueprint 12 will showcase works of 4 artists, one each from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Works of artists Subrat Kumar Behera, Mahbubur Rahman, Pala Pothupitye and Youdhishtir Maharjan, from the South Asian Region will be exhibited, encouraging a conversation across borders. The selection of works, based on the concept of ‘belonging’ and ‘identity’ weave stories of colonisation, fantasy and socio-political issues in these regions.

Mahbubur Rahman, one the most prominent and prolific voices from Bangladesh uses multiple medium like painting, sculpture, video and performance, to bring out the anguish and anxiety of Bangladeshi citizens. Mahbubur’s sculpture, ‘Lonely King’ talks about our society where we worship power and money. One gains more power and leadership when one serves and meets other’s desires. Just like the consumer world, we live in such an aggressive society, where someone can be ‘No One’ at any point, no matter if the person deserves that. Everybody is King in his own dream world. But if the dream is taken away the same King can become the ‘Lonely King’ and start living in isolation.

Youdhishtir Mahajan, born and raised in Nepal, currently lives in the USA. For his work ‘Long walk to Freedom’ Maharajan erased all the text in Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, leaving only periods. Disassembling the book to form a scroll, he then connected the periods to form one long line nearly 180 ft in length. This repetitive, laborious task frees the mind to a state of meditative calm, an eternal nothingness.

Pala Pothupitye from Sri Lanka has worked on a project with maps, re crafting their ‘social’ context focusing on the ‘historical evolution’ of the region. In his work ‘Fort Jaffna’, he has taken a digital print of the fort and re drawn it, highlighting it as an institution of power held by the colonisers, thus undermining the authority of the map maker and critiquing these forced influences on the island.

Subrat Kumar Behera, the young Indian artist, is currently one of the main artists being showcased at The Kochi Muziri’s Biennale 2016. Subrats’s long horizontal triptych, ‘The Eternal Dance of Tribal Drama’ presents traditional dancers, some of which are Gauri dancers and some are the traditional Chhau dancers from Orissa’s Mayurbhanj area. In this work Subrat exhibits a dreamscape depicted in various lithographs that connect with one another, each depicting traditional Indian dancers and deities along with fantastic and imaginary animals.

About Gallery Blueprint 12

Gallery Blueprint 12 is the brain child of duo Mandira Lamba, and Ridhi Bhalla. Mandira and Ridhi have to their credit, the management of Nitanjali, a gallery focusing on the promotion Modern Art from the Indian subcontinent. Having worked in the field for over a decade, their trained ‘eyes’ and sensibilities now bend towards an appreciation of Contemporary art forms. At Blueprint 12, it is their endeavor to promote challenging and experimental forms of Art. The team works with evolved contemporary artists from the Indian subcontinent, including India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan.

Past events supported by Blueprint, like the ‘Reading Room’, an exhibition of book art curated by Amit Kumar Jain have been critically well received, and been invited to show in various parts of the world, including Kochi, New York and UK.

The gallery also has a not for profit artist run studio in Vadodra.

Content Courtesy: VTY – Very Truly Yours, New Delhi
VTY – Very Truly Yours, New Delhi

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