Abdulla Pathan

Abdullah Pathan is an artist who captures the essence of Indian village life through his works on Bulls. ‘The animal within!’ is the thought that comes to mind when one is made to think with Mr. Pathan’s Bulls. His, Bull’s series don’t just exist but brings about such energy and expresses sheer strength and beauty of the beast. Pathan treats the ‘Bull’ as his own self which one cannot deny the fact that he has a unique style of portraying this animal which has an indispensable place in Indian mythology. There is an empathy that he evokes in the people visualizing when faced with his sculptures. Through his work, he exiles the power, pride and heart of the beast that is a part of all of us.

Barun Pramanik

Barun Pramanik is a talented artist that has completed a number of exhibitions and art shows across India. He completed his Degree in B.V.A from the RabindraBharati University in 2004, with a first class.

Adil Writer

Adil Writer is a Bombay architect-turned-potter, living his life between two Indian coasts, with a Masters of Architecture degree from the University of Houston, Texas. He returned to Bombay and worked as an architect and interior designer before taking a short break to study ceramics. The short break extended for over two years, after which Writer moved to Auroville, an international community in the forests of South India where he currently resides and is a partner at the Mandala Pottery. Here he strikes a fine balance between making ‘delicious’ functional tableware and his own sculptural studio ceramics, bringing with him twelve years of architectural experience.

Writer’s CV reads like a travelogue, wanderlust is what he says takes him across the world for invited residencies, workshops and exhibitions. His ceramics and large-scale paintings have been showcased at several solo and group exhibitions in Japan, China, India, Indonesia, Australia, Estonia, France and USA. In 2013, Writer was instrumental in arranging a residency for a group of 18 Indian ceramists to Fuping that led to their making works for the proposed Museum of Contemporary Indian Ceramics in China. Later in 2014, he organised a residency for another group in Korea. Adil says “Working away from one’s studio has its advantages. Out of one’s comfort zone, fresh ideas and methods of work goad the artist into new directions in work. It’s at once intimidating, as well as refreshing.”

Writer’s architectural background keeps him interested in large-scale ceramic and unfired clay-on-canvas installations and murals, the most recent ones being a 60 feet long mural at a resort in Sri Lanka and the 35 feet long “Barcode” which has toured several galleries already. In 2011, at Shigaraki, one of the oldest kilnsites in Japan, Adil ulminated his three-month invited residency with a solo show titled “Himitsu Te Uso” (Secrets & Lies). His works from Shigaraki were later exhibited at Gallery Art & Soul, Mumbai in 2013 at a show titled “Secrets & Lies.” Another residency in Bali culminated in a solo show “Shades of Grey,” featuring Writer’s ceramics and batik. He also featured in, “Six by Six: Interpreting Craft in Gondwana,” a pathbreaking Indo-Australian show at he Australian Triennial in Canberra featuring three Indian and three Australian ceramists.

About his forthcoming collection for Art Bengaluru 2016, Adil states, “Human beings have, through millennia, felt the necessity to document lives and times with a range of available media. Clay tablets used in Mesopotamia date back to the 3rd millennium, we know of Egyptian scrolls written in Hieratic, Roman and Greek scrolls on Papyrus, Chinese Bamboo Books, Tamil Palm Leaf manuscripts. Closer home in , Arzoo Mistry’s mysterious books made very much “her” way. Books made of any medium have an incredible connect with persons interacting with them. In 2011, I started making books out of clay during three-month residency in Shigaraki, Japan. Small three-inch books, to large 1.5-meter sculptural book-shrines. The books I have made for Art Bengaluru 2016 are all made with a clay body prepared at my studio, Mandala Pottery in Auroville. Techniques of slipping and stretching slabs of clay give them the texture one sees on the book surfaces. The vapours of soda that these books are subsequently subjected to, highlight these textures. While it might be difficult to predict the future of the book in an era of fast-paced technological change, anxieties about the “death of books” have been expressed throughout the history of the medium, perceived as threatened by competing media such as Radio, Television, and the Internet. However, these views are generally exaggerated, and dominated by fetishism, fears about the end of humanism and ideas of techno-fundamentalist progress. To theorize that the Kindle and subsequent digital phenomena will do away with books altogether is far-fetched. I have exhibited ceramic books at several shows, titled “Secrets & Lies” in Japan, Bali and Bombay. Now here for Art Bengaluru, I have made ceramic books that may last millennia’s. It will be interesting to know how aliens from another galaxy far, far away will react to these, when they come unearth them soon.”

Amol Pawar

Amol Shivajirao Pawar was born on March 8th, 1983. He received his G.D in Applied Art from Abhinav Kala Mahavidyalay in Pune, India.

Amol Pawar enjoys exploring a variety mediums and experimenting with different media. He depicts his study in various forms, colour schemes, and textures. Many of his paintings are abstract and reveal his own rhythm of life. Pawar’s paintings feature the human form and mirror the philosophy of the mind, which is to think big and let one’s aspirations grow. His interest lies in the use of symbols such as icons, numbers, calligraphy, textures, line drawings, and in the elements of nature such as trees, flowers and leaves. He believes that these symbols create a sense of additional depth to art work. His predominant use of Earthly colours, particularly golden, indicates his grounded nature as well as the richness and purity of both, his thoughts and intentions. Almost all of his paintings are figurative and depict real life. Nature forms the main element in Pawar’s paintings. The human figures in his paintings represent himself and displays the eternal love that exists between man and woman.

Atish Mukherjee

Atish Mukherjee was born on 18th January in Kolkata. He acquired his Bachelor’s in Visual Arts from Government College of Art specializing in Applied Art and Graphic Design. He has also attended several workshops on sculpture and painting in India.

Chandan Bhowmick

Chandan Bhowmick was born on October 1st 1978. He has over nine years of cumulative experience in Art, Painting & Creative work. Adept in handling creative designs with allied materials, exploring innovative techniques, concepts in painting and niche specialized execution in abstract painting. His objective is to drive and explore the excellence of art and painting. His main hobbies include short film making, photography, sculpting, watching movies and travelling.

Daan Oude Elferink

Daan Oude Elferink also known as Daanoe was born in Dreumel, The Netherlands in 1978.Daan Oude Elferink takes you to the world behind the ‘no entry’ signs and locked doors. He offers us a glimpse of the beautiful, forbidden world of decay through his eyes.

Decay Ignites the Imagination

“You’d be surprised what people leave behind, often for unknown reasons. Beautiful villas, still fully furnished – everything covered in a layer of dust. Hospitals with patient files scattered in the hallways. Theaters and ballrooms, now empty of laughter. Castles where the family photo album still sits on the book shelf. Memories of what used to be.

How did these people live? Why is the place abandoned? What happened?

With time, nature starts to take over. As the years pass, buildings and the secrets they keep crumble and decay. On first glance you may see a pile of moldy debris, but look at it with different eyes and you’ll find a breathtaking beauty.”

Devipriya

Devipriya Vimalanathan was born on July 14th 1982.

Dilip Chaudhury

Graduated with a First Class Gold Medal in the year 1986 from The Indian College of Arts and Draftsmanship. He went on to study an Art Appreciation Course regarding Cultural and Art affairs under the Govt. of West Bengal. Throughout his years as an artist he has won several awards. Dilip Chaudhury has also been invited for various art camps and exhibitions in Birla academy. His paintings are also collected by many eminent people across the globe.

Gao Rong

Gao Rong was born in 1986 in Hang Jin Hou Qi, Inner Mongolia. She received her BA from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, China. Using needle and thread, Gao Rong transforms domestic items into installations of visual language, referencing the traditionally feminine craft of folk embroidery. She often assimilates entire replicas of cars, tables, washing machines and other household objects in fabrics that invite further inspection – for example, a ripped sofa reveals hours of meticulous embroidery work, and a sink of dirty dishes, which in reality takes just seconds to create, is crafted over weeks in Gao’s labored hand. Her solo exhibition ‘I live in Beijing!’ at New York’s Eli Klein Fine Art (2013) featured hyperrealistic embroidered installations that addressed the illusion of comfort in domestic settings. A new direction in her oeuvre is an expansion of her fine embroidery practice, where she weaves abstract shapes across wooden hoop frames, looking at the intersections between domestic and public spaces. These works premiered in her second solo show in the U.S, ‘The Simple Line’ at Klein Sun Gallery, 2016. 

Her work has been included in major museum group shows around the world including ‘Half the Sky: Conversations with Women Artists in China’, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing, China in 2016, ‘Commune’, White Rabbit Collection, Sydney, Australia in 2014, ‘More Light’ – The 5th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia in 2013,’Transformation: A View on Chinese Contemporary Art’, Istanbul Modern
Art Museum, Istanbul, Turkey in 2012,’Sculpture China’, Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Beijing, China in 2012, ‘All our relations’, 18th Biennale of Sydney, Sydney, Australia in 2012, and ‘SuperOrganism’, Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Beijing, China in 2011.

Harisha Chennangod

Harisha Chennangod was born on August 18th 1984. He graduated with a BFA in painting from Cava College in Mysore, India in 2007. He went on to study further and secured his MA in Fine Museology from MS University of Baroda in 2009.

Henk Van Putten

Amsterdam born artist Henk van Putten is a Dutch artist who calls India home. He settled in Auroville, Puducherry, in 2001. After his studies at the Technical School Amsterdam Henk worked as a designer at various studios and in 1965 he set up his own consultancy. From 1970 onwards he became an Independent designer and sculptor. Soon afterwards he started participating in exhibitions and art fairs
across Europe. Some included the Art Basel-Cologne-Frankfurt, ASB Galleries London and Barcelona, PAN Amsterdam, Galleria Carl VanderVoort-Ibiza, Gallery Bozar-Antwerp and Gallery Am Zee-witzerland among many others

In 2014 his work ‘Stretching’ won the Liu Kaiqu Excellence Award, Wuhu, China. He works with various materials like steel, stone, bronze and wood from the building blocks of his sculptures and multidimensional objects. He strongly believes that an exhibition is in complete without new work. He says “A reasonable human being should avoid situations of stress but it is striking how I willfully create, again and again, a lot of unnecessarytension by adding new pieces.”

While constructing a new object, he ardently visualizes it in monumental proportions in his mind and chuckles at the wonderful vision while pondering about the different material possibilities for its realization.

He reckons that his profession is rather a strange mission as ideas appear at their own will at inconvenient times but they fulfill their purpose by keeping him engrossed with work.

Mark093

Marko 93 is an internationally acclaimed French street artist who grew up in Saint‐Denis, a historical strongly working class suburb in Paris. In the late 1980’s, the Hip Hop movement emerged on the scene and rapidly laid roots in big cities and suburbs. It was the time of city walls, wastelands and railways tracks. Marko embraced graffiti as his means of expression and painted in a number of these places,
revealing slices of his suburban life. Big letters entangled, realistic scenes, caricatures and even free‐style pieces, he was learning to master all the techniques of the urban art form.  

Originally influenced by the American styles, he soon formed his own identity with the discovery of Arabic calligraphy which he took over and reinvented in the early 1990s. This abstract style blending calligraphy with an urbanesque flavor elevated him as a key player on the graffiti scene. As street art entered into art galleries in the late 1990s, Marko was travelling the world. He was discovering new pictorial and human horizons and even began to paint human bodies. His complex and ethereal calligraphies covered dancers’ bodies in night‐clubs from Rio to Hong‐Kong.

The early 2000s were a turning point for Marko as he was becoming as assertive as his art. Marko started experimenting with state‐of‐the‐art technologies, making effects of retinal persistence. He reinvented, enhanced and popularized the light‐painting process touched upon by Man Ray and Picasso. He built his first light paintings with gestures, colors and light. He also developed the first ‘Instant‐Live’ Real Time Video, a unique technique to paint the space live. This allowed him to perform in places as eclectic as the palace of the Arab Emirates princess, a live show in Bombay and the famous World Auto show. Today, Marko93 performs all over the world. He has spread his unique aesthetics and his enlightening sensitivity, from in situ performances to collaborations, mural paintings, light‐painting videos and workshops ‐ through institutional or private orders.

Nele Martins

Nele MArtins was born in the year 1957 in Munich, Germany. She received her early foundation in Art during high school by working with sculptor Florian Lechner in Neubeuren, Germany. After one year of Art studies at Kunstakademie, she enhanced her Artistry of sculpting by working with sculptor Marcello Fantoni in Italy. She also studied for four years at the Istitutod’Arte, Florence, Italy; ensuing which she ceramic sculpture worked and painting in her studio in Tuscany Italy.

In the year 1993, she became a permanent resident of the International Township of Auroville. Her array of works in Auroville include Paintings (acrylic, oil and mixed media on canvas), Kinetic sculptures, Plexiglas works, Public Art and work on theater stages and Light projection Art. She also has the creation of an Art center to her credit .It has open studios for sculpture and painting where she conducts Art courses.

Sachin Deo

Sachin Deo graduated in 2000 with a four year national diploma from the Government Institute of Fine Art in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. He also participated in Kala Parishad and in the Raza Award Exhibition from 1999 to 2002. His mixed media work came into the spotlight at the Lalit Kala galleries in New Delhi. Sachin did his first solo show in Mumbai at the Taj Gallery in 2002 and his second show at the Museum gallery in Bombay, 2008. Sachin won international acclaim at the ‘Reflection of Soul’ Exhibition held at Fish Slab Gallery in Whistable, England in 2003. His work has been appreciated at various prestigious galleries, Vadehra, Art Alive, Cymroza, Tao, Threshold gallery Delhi, and Religare Arts in Delhi to name a few.

Satish Bhaisare

Satish Bhaisare was born in the year 1980 in Harda, Madhya Pradesh. He has attained a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting from the Government Institute of Fine Arts in Indore.

S.A Vimalnathan

S.A Vimalnathan is a freelance artist who was born in the year 1978. He attained a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting in Karnataka from Chitrakala Parishath, Bangalore in the year 2001. Later he became a gold medalist as he secured first rank in Masters in Visual Arts for Painting from Bangalore University.

S.G. Vasudev

Rising high above the city of Mysore the undulating hills of Chamundi are a landmark of myth and history. The road uphill leads one to the temple of Chamundeshwari the tutelary deity of the erstwhile Wodeyar regime. She is seen as an eight-handed icon of supremacy sitting astride a lion and with attributes with which she vanquishes the tyranny of the buffalo headed demon, Mahishasura. She is one who revels in her victory over evil and watches over the city.

Listening to fables was a childhood pastime for S.G.Vasudev. He regales one with memories of his Birthplace, of visits to the royal elephant stable close by his grandparents’ house and the Dussehra pageantry. With his grandfather working for the Maharaja of Mysore and Officer in-charge of the Chamundeshwari temple, Vasudev often found an opportunity to visit the hills. The long walks unravelled fascinating stories from the Mahabharata and Ramayana enacted by his grandfather, an amazing storyteller. It is in this city that Vasudev discovered the joys of drawing and imagery which have become an integral part of his compositions. The presence of the elephant which at times evolves into a Ganesa, the Kannada integers, the hills, tree of life and other characters from myths are often seen in his drawings, paintings, copper relief works and tapestries. Some of these traditional motifs and folk forms can be seen incorporated ingeniously in ‘Scenes from the Mahabharata’, ‘Fantasy’, ‘Elephant and man’,’ She and Hills’, Theatre of Life and Tree of Life.

The desire to create art that is contemporary and Indian in ethos has continually inspired Vasudev to seek from literature and legends. His association with Girish Karnad and A.K.Ramanujam further introduced him to the beauty of folk tales and the art of recreating and making them visually contemporary. In the present body of small format abstract paintings in oil the artist recaptures the fantasy of hills imbibing emotions of deep rooted belongingness. Often having visualized the hills as elephant and lion faced forms, the artist uses them as a metaphor of perpetuity. Verdant landscapes layered and textured with dots and lines evoke the many hues of hills that have stood witness to changing seasons. Inspired by Tanjore, Mysore, miniature paintings and Ajanta murals, Vasudev chooses a palette of exquisite colours
allowing the flow of a single colour to dominate.

In this series, showcased at Sublime Galleria from the 19th-28th August, the artist recreates his own myth of the indigenous that remains immovable or ‘Achala’ in a continuum of time and space.

Sharad Haskar

Sharad Haskar is India’s most accomplished and acclaimed photographer with accolades from all over the world. A Cannes Silver Lion winner and a D&AD nominee, Sharad is the only Asian to snag a Gold, Silver, two Bronze and twenty one honorable mentions, at the prestigious IPA Awards. Popular Photography selected Sharad as one of the Top 10 lens men in the world, in 2005. The same year Adobe Galgo named him the Photographer of the Year in India. 

A year later, Luerzer’s Archive listed him as one of 200 Best Photographers in the world. Till date, SharadHaksar has won over 200 regional, national and international awards. Sharad acquired his craft from masters like Bill Megalos, Constantine Manos, Robert Farber, Sol Negrin and Iqbal Mohamed. The Maine workshops and innumerable brand shoots have honed his skills as an artist with a keen eye for advertising, fashion, still life, travel, and conceptual photography. Driven by ideas, Sharad is the mastermind behind the world’s first camera lens calendar that he has patented. The innovative piece of art is chiseled from a single block of aluminium and has dates running till the year 2032. Sharad operates out of South India, from his studio, Eye-Light Pictures.

Being a passionate creative person with strong design sense, Sharad runs an advertising hot shop in Chennai, called 1pointsize. He is the founder of OneEyeland.com, the world’s largest virtual community for creative photographers. The site has over 60,000 registered members with over 8.5 million page views a year.

Shashi Bhrarati

Shashi Bharati was born on 10th May 1987 in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. She has established herself as a freelance artist with clientele from different walks of life in India and overseas. Shashi Bharati has been unleashing her creativity for over six years with great passion and dedication and is currently working at  her independent studio in New Delhi. She firmly believes that her art is her first love and her color is her identification.

Shashi Bharati is a contemporary Indian painter who infuses sensibility, sensuality, spirituality and abstract energy into her paintings. Her brush strokes and graphic representations are her focal point. She emphasizes on strong emotional communication that is bold, explosive, tender, sensitive, gentle, spontaneous, passionate, vital or intense.

The subject matter of Shashi Bharati’s art compels and seduces her viewers’ emotions giving them a profound thought provoking experience. Her paintings reflect the spirit and soul of her subjects, creating intimacy and personal awareness. The stimulating graphics along with the appealing abstract energy make Shashi’s art a diversified and unique style.

Siddharth Shingade

Siddharth Shingade’s work finds its place in many collections across India, USA and The UK. One noteworthy art piece is found in the Mr. L.N Mittal’s collection, Doordarshan, Hinduja.

Subodh Kerkar

Dr. Subodh Kerkar was born on August 26th, 1959. He gave up his medical profession to pursue his passion for visual art. For the past 25 years he has experimented with different media creating a niche for himself as an installation artist.

Suresh Pushpangathan

Son of a traditional sculptor, Suresh Pushpangathan spent much of his childhood whittling away wood pieces as he watched his father create large statues in Sandalwood. He spent his time wandering through lush tropical foliage around Varkala in Kerala, an area dotted with a lot of backwater reflections and filled with coastal serenity. His exposure to nature led him to start painting at an early stage. He eventually committed to his creativity and enrolled himself at Chitra Kala Parishathin Bangalore and graduated from there in 2002. In 2011 he took a short break pursuing his Master degree in Art and Design from the University of Bedfordshire, Luton, United Kingdom. Suresh Pushpangathan has also had several successful shows and his work is on display in a number of private collections across the world.

Nature and his father’s works were his initial and immediate inspiration. His next big inspiration and influence was the play of light, its ever changing hues and its effect on our moods and the the manner in which it wavers in and out of our emotional depths. Through his deft and sensitive strokes, he tries to capture this theme of light and color, knowing that each tone and hue has a dramatic effect of its own.

His recent works outline the key areas of the approach to paintings with context, identifying an immediate response to the human eye, which corresponds to a short memory, or a social or historical significance of that particular gesture or an activity which reminds him of his own memories. He believes there’s a possibility of a small bridge connecting the abstract and the real, to him this connection tends to appear unidentified or even mysterious. Metaphysically these elements broaden in his work, and hence fall into an arena of contemporary or figurative abstraction.

Surya Prakash

Born in 1940 in Madhira, the then Princely State of Hyderabad, Surya Prakash studied painting in the city, and later went on to work under Ram Kumar in New Delhi. Starting with his first solo exhibition in Hyderabad in 1963, he has held over 50 solo shows in the country and abroad. He has also participated in numerous group shows and traveled extensively across Europe, USA, and other parts of the world. In addition to curating several exhibitions, he has also acted as a Member Commissioner for the 5th & 11th India Triennial and was the jury member for numerous National and State Art Exhibitions. His bio  extends to conducting several artist workshops for various Corporate, Educational, Scientific, and Medical Institutions.

Surya Prakash’s conscious decision to follow in the footsteps of Gaitonde and Ram Kumar was the defining moment of his career. His coming of age coincided with the firm establishment of the modernist diction. He forged his own path of abstracting reality as he saw it, his visionary panache for abstraction being rooted in realism. His paintings exuded a visceral familiarity, yet enveloped the viewer in a meditative stance.

Surya’s canvases traverse a wide array of subjects from discarded heaps of junkyard automobiles, to desolate landscapes. From barren leaves to the pointillist style, which are reminiscent of classical impressions in content, while the forms echo a reasoned realism.

Having received numerous awards, including the National Award from the Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi, Surya’s paintings are sought after the world over. This demand has meant that his works continue to be on display, in various public, private, and corporate collections across the globe.

It is not every day that a veteran artist like Mr. Surya Prakash exhibits a Giclee Print of the best of his artworks, from his artistic journey. For the first time in India, Meraki Art Gallery brings on display, “A Retrospective Carnival” showcasing the first prints of artist Surya’s masterpieces from 1960 to 2015, in a limited edition.