Spotting trends

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Parag Sonarghare’s We Make Memories the Old Fashioned Way

Shows such as Art Spotting III at Art Positive that displays a collection of paintings, sculptures, installations and digital creations by a group of 20 new emerging artists from across India is an excellent way to understand the latest trends in terms of thematic and materials being employed by artists.

It offers an overview of the transitions and transformations taking place in art practice in tandem with globalising India.
The younger artists seem to be exploring the creative process by engaging with deeply personal and individual issues on one hand and the larger social issues on the other. This leads them to connect with art at an emotional level through memory, spirituality and also with public domains. Both the domains combine in the two sculptural works by Sanjay Prajapati. He uses Indian instruments such as the tabla and santoor to not only recall the Indian music but also cadences of Indian way of life. Disembodied hands play out a ghost rhythm on a skeletal table or twang the strings of the santoor, revealing the integral relationship between the instrument and the hands that play it.
Parag Sonarghare work We Make Memories the Old Fashioned Way is a self conscious exploration of traditional ways of portraiture within new compositions. In this acrylic on canvas painting he has juxtaposed an artist with all the influences that work on him ranging from folk forms to tattoos to architectural designs with rural and semi-urban boys within an oval broidery frame, often found in Victorian portraits.
Two very pink elephants in combat make up Sujith Sudhakaran’s Fight: set within an idyllic landscape but against sinister skeletal remains of an elephant. One can read references to the Indian jataka tradition as well as didactic content of the same in the painting. The show explores the different aesthetic conventions, from those that use beauty as a device to those that distort reality, at play in the sensibilities of young artists.