This show showcases that you don’t need color to be striking, and these black and white paintings prove that. This show is a radical new look at what happens when artists cast aside the color spectrum and focus on the visual power of black, white, and everything in between. Black and white or monochrome painting concept developed during the 20th century. Depicting a sheer timeless medium, such paintings dramatically bring to fore the stupendous combination of contrast, texture, line and effect. Black and white art allow artists to portray their subjects in surprising new ways. The monochrome often serves one of two purposes. The first of these was communicating spiritual purity; by choosing one color, artists could explore the tranquility of total abstraction.
Parvathi Nayar’s work relooks the acting of looking. She plays with our perceptions and subtly queries our subconscious positions of visual stability, at the way we classify things as being such and such and so and so. Parvathi’s work suggests that when the perspective frame of looking is changed it destabilizes our understanding of what we are seeing – and in this way it encourages to relook the world we are living in. She encourages her viewers into contemplative, meditative and curious positions of viewing that make them receptive to the idea of the world seen differently by changing visual perspectives.
Gigi Scaria’s work intervenes at the tension created as the world heads towards an apocalypse due to many disturbances- climatic, geographical and human. According to him, Noah’s Ark represents the phoenix of new beginnings arising from this complete destruction. The Ark is the recurring motif that appears in tranquil and desolate landscapes in a suite of paintings, graphite drawings and animated videos.
Manil’s work is autobiographical, whimsical, experiential, introspective, reflective, social commentary, child-like, ambiguous and documentative, all at the same time.
Importantly, while at a visual level, the works seem to have a strong Graphic quality and they’re playing in the realms of Optical illusion, a closer engagement would reveal an existential search within a spiritual context.
Remen Chopras’ work conceptualizes detailed staged sets, during which she collaborates with performers who become the represented subjects of my works and drawings. The feminine form has a particularly strong presence in her work.
Chetnaa’s layered, cut and perforated paper on paper series works draws inference from the anionic geometric representations found in Islamic art and architecture. Beautifully exemplifying the play of geometry, perfectionism and capturing light in the most intriguing manner, the layered works hence further epitomize my otherwise musings on paper.