Exhibition of artists in Orissa at the MonArt Gallery Kolkata
Art Gallery, Odisha artists, THINGS ODISHA N ODIA March 23rd. 2008, 9:57amSome of the art can be seen in the pages: [8],[9],[10],[11] and [12].
Following is what a Telegraph report says about them.
The exhibition of artists from Orissa titled Dimensions & Directions that has opened at Mon Art Gallerie is a refreshing change from the cliched works displayed over and over again at most city galleries nowadays.
To begin with, these young artists have a more heightened awareness of the political situation in the state and also of the degradation of environment as the direct fallout of some political decisions. Some of the works may seem a trifle crude but nobody can doubt their effectiveness despite that shortcoming.
In Debarchan Rout’s canvas a man on a scaffolding is painting a wall green, while ironically greenery has been erased from the terrain beneath him in the name of development. The world map has turned into a black umbrella stopping acid rain from destroying a sapling in Rajiblochan Pani’s canvas.
Traders would once set out from Bali from the Orissa coast, but now the rivers have turned dry and sand is carted away from it. Huge factories come up in background. The entire scene in this work by Sovan Kumar is painted on a piece of tarpaulin.
Birendra Pani once again focuses on the young cross-dressing dancers of Orissa, this time folk style. In Rohit Supakar’s painting, a brand new car emerges from the trunk of an anthropomorphic tree, in an obvious reference to the resistance put up by local people against forcible appropriation of farmland by the government.
In Ramakrishna Behera’s wide-angle paintings of Ladakh, the dividing line between fact and fancy melt away. It must be mentioned that however well intentioned the installation on Ridley turtles may have been it ended up looking too obvious.
April 19th, 2008 at 2:34 am
Dear chitta,
i am interested in art and am constantly looking for new artists to expand my collection. i would like to get in touch with some of the artists in this show directly. Could you help me with this??? thanks, shailja