New hues on the block

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The wide canvas of Indian art is all set to celebrate new shades as the spotlight zooms in on a group of upcoming artists. As a preview of the United Art Fair 2013, gallerist and art collector Peter Nagy and his six-membered curatorial team assembled a diverse group of art works by some of the most promising budding talent of the Indian contemporary art scene.
Comprising of over 60 works by 16 artists including Anand Jaiswal, Akash Gaur, Devengana Kumar, Julie Skarland, Manil Rohit and Shobha Deepak Singh among others, the exhibition “Media Flourishes” recently held in the city was a part of the curtain raiser for the much-awaited United Art Fair, scheduled to be held in September and gave a glimpse of what to expect this year.
With his painting titled Dilli artist Manisha Jha tries to solve the mystery of the popularity of Delhi. “I painted Delhi as a tree of life, where Qutub Minar forms the trunk of the tree. Its branches show Dilli Haat, yoga centres, traffic jams and the Metro,” shares Jha, who is also an architect. She adds, “Qutub Minar and the Yamuna have been witnesses to all the changes in Delhi.”
Another Delhi-based artist Nidhi Agarwal paints aggressive, muscular abstractions that harbour figurative passages and landscape tendencies. Anand Jaiswal from Kurukshetra uses different objects and images from historic times. Basist Kumar who hails from Santiniketan fuses singular portraits with iconic landscapes, resulting in diptych paintings that are indebted to both science fiction and symbolism.
Artist Devangana Kumar, who hails from Delhi, is a designer who layers her work with paintings, printing and decoupage, juxtaposing images from popular culture, colourful Indian kitsch and even old photographs, transforming mundane objects into edgy collectibles.
Also on display was Shobha Deepak Singh’s photograph titled Transient, where the artist captured a young dancer in performance, dressed in a white, swirling dress.
Curator Alka Pande says, “We have looked at the younger artists’ ways of representation and tried to bring to the fair the cultural diversity of our nation. We are exploring the scene of art in contemporary India — whether it is rural, folk, tribal or experimental avant garde.”