By Ruchika Chanana
And God said, let there be a line.
With apologies to the believers out there, the world of art does indeed begin with the line. From cave paintings to installation art of the most complex, layered kind, drawing is essential or the prelude. According to Julia Villasenor Bell, curator of the summer exhibit Extending the Line at the Vadehra Gallery, drawing has internationally evolved much further than mere strokes of pen or charcoal on paper, and she has seen works in ‘drawing’ exhibitions that are, in fact, origami. Definitions change and widen in creative expression every day and this show explores these defining boundaries and the broadening of their limits. She says “…drawings.…do not confine themselves to being lines on paper, void of colour or dimension.”
Babu Eshwar Prasad
Untitled
Pen & ink on paper
19.5″ x 12.5″
Taking the ‘line’ as her guide, Julia has selected works primarily from the Gallery’s own collections, from new and established artists that vividly illustrate her point. Some works featured are by artists that usually prefer other media whereas others, like the glorious Jogen Chowdhury, mainly work in ink and pastels.
Arpita Singh
Untitled
Ink on paper
8.5″ x 6.5″
Some are traditional sketches, like Arpita Singh’s series of little works that use oh-such-basic strokes to portray what seem like everyday stories {bathroom mat, dinner setting} but are so much more; and some go elsewhere in the stretching of the line, like Priyanka Chowdhury’s copper and steel wire-forming strands of entanglement, or with mixed media as in Pranati Panda’s stunning works, ‘Breathing Inside’, that pulsate with life unborn like giant cocoons waiting to hatch.
Pranati Panda- Breathing Inside – I
Mixed media on paper
22″ x 30″
The masters are represented by Souza, Raza and Tyeb Mehta as preparatory sketches– and sometimes if you look sideways, they remind you of a finished piece that has stayed in the recesses of your memory. Yet other artists use drawing as a remarkable end in itself. I couldn’t take my eyes off Shefalee Jain’s ‘Study for the Garden of Delights’, a series of female figures drawn in graphite and dry pastels, who seemed to be trying to examine or grope their own insides. Or Zakkir Hussain and his intriguing ‘House on a Railway Track’ that has a tree of a hundred crisscrossing hands drawn in blood red watercolour that seem to be imploring, pleading, flailing in response to some intense, violent action. The collages by Sumedh Rajendran take the idea of extending the line further, using mirrors and boldly etched figures to represent the uncertainty of a non-linear world. George Martin tells extravagant stories with the colourful chaos of his canvases in ink and acrylic, and the beautiful ‘Container Series’ by by Minal Damani, uses gentle washes of colour and bold lines to create a feeling of being adrift, alone: just like a line.
Where | Vadehra Art Gallery, D53, Defence Colony,
When | June 29 – July 28, 2012.
Details | For more information on the exhibition, call 011 4610 3550 / art@vadehraart.com.
Coming Up at Vadehra Art Gallery |
To participate in a special drawing workshop with Shefalee Jain on July 25th from 3 to 6 pm, call 46103550 / 46103551 or email : julia@vadehraart.com
Fees : 500 INR and 250 INR (students)
About the Author | Ruchika Chanana is a writer, actor and theatre director. She has worked in television and dabbled in documentary filmmaking in the past, and hopes to go back to it someday. She adores climbing mountains, good design and great food. Ruchika has recently moved to Delhi and is learning to love its good bits, and like its bad.
