Creativity grows among friends, withers among enemies, goes the saying. The creators of these magical photographs must surely be blessed with friends aplenty for them to be able to evince such innovative and magnificent art works from the medium of photography, now backed by digital technology.
Circumventing the common practice of the day of “curating” shows containing “over 200 works from 100 artists”, by self-styled “curators”, veteran artist Shobha Broota has taken time off to lend her energies to oversee a show of 16 young and mid-career artist photographers for the Philipose Centre for Art and Culture, Chattarpur, near Qutab Minar Metro Station.
The show consists of 18 artists, a lot of them painters and fine artists, who have used photography and digital art as their medium for works on display. These photo art works have not all been printed on conventional photo paper, but on large canvasses, wood, glass and other invented surfaces.
Shivani Agarwal’s close-ups of foliage, drenched in raindrops, misty and throbbing, printed on canvas, are nothing if not magical. Vinayak Choudhari’s vocabulary is intimate and crisp.
A solitary ladybird on a vast expanse of what seems a sphere makes us aware of our own smallness on the face of the universe ~ an amazing form to cut a frame around, in a work of amazing sensitivity. So completely at one with nature ~ it has to come from the heart, with the dedication to capture subjects just at the right moment. The lone bird on the branch ~ that’s how they would live their life sans the constant and merciless human invasion they are subjected to.
Suzanne Hayano gives us monochromatic close ups of cacti ~ nature’s marvel! In a truly unusual exercise, Sakshi Broota springs surprises with microscopic details of found objects. Shalini Dugar’s is a mixed bag of subjects from the Dal Lake, a boat, to some portraiture. Rajini Sircar’s Garden Sprinkler has interesting surface divisions, juxtaposing tree forms against flat surfaces, an old fashioned, slightly cluttered hall and dining areas in fading sepia tones.
Nehmat Mongia ~ Every Day is a Sunday, with two dogs perched on the hall couch; she makes the colours bleed on some of her other works. Naman Hosamane clicked as he discerned form in rising flames, against the pitch dark of the night. Mousumi Sircar gives a mixed bag with landscape and women crossing the street.
Jaspreet Singh is very versatile, gripping with every frame he cuts from streaks of lightening to streaks of car lights, ripping past the Charminar. His imagery is diverse, as are rhythms and patterns he senses, the camel scenes as rich as the skies he captures.
Gunmala Singh nothing short of tantalises with her pictures of Alaska, clicked from the aircraft, freezing unbelievable details from a moving plane! Disha Matreja has clicked unusual frames collected from the docks, culminating in what is seemingly in recollection of Mondrian! Deepti Reu, who has also partnered Broota in her curatorial venture, gives us an unforgettable frame with pebbles on a river bed, settled like gems on the vast lap of the universe.
Among all of Chaitanya Rukumpur’s singular frames is one that captures a fleet of flying ducks, quizzing us as much as the thoughtful frog, on the perspective deployed for the click! Amit Kr Das uses computer graphics to transform an already intimate forest niche into painterly expressions Radha-Krishna amity, with two entwined tree trunks in amazing feat of imagination, symbolically tinted with blue and pink.
Aiyana Gunjan has made an album from his creative response to the sea, even as Swapna Maini enthrals us with her rich and colourful frames on traditional Indian dance. All in all, it is an exceptional show, laudable for its creativity and selection, like a refreshing breath of air amidst the plethora of daring substandard enterprise.