EXHIBITION "Celebration" Solo Show of artworks by Sohan Qadri at Kumar Gallery, 56, Sunder Nagar Market > 20th January to 5th February 2017

Artworks Sohan Qadri

Time : 11:00 pm to 7:00 pm (Sundays closed) Add to Calendar 20/01/2017 11:00 05/02/2017 19:00 Asia/Kolkata EXHIBITION "Celebration" Solo Show of artworks by Sohan Qadri Event Page : http://www.delhievents.com/2017/01/exhibition-celebration-solo-show-of.html Kumar Gallery, 56, Sunder Nagar Market, New Delhi DD/MM/YYYY

Entry : Free

Venue : Kumar Gallery, 56, Sunder Nagar Market, New Delhi
Venue Info : www.kumargallery.com | Map Nearest Metro Stations - 'Pragati Maidan(Blue Line)' & 'Khan Market (Violet Line)'

Event Description : EXHIBITION "Celebration" Solo Show of artworks by Sohan Qadri

He is one of the most reclusive artists of our times, and yet, whenever Sohan Qadri’s name surfaces, art lovers sit up and take notice. Bringing attention to some of the most sought after works of this master-artist renowned for tantric art, Delhi-based Kumar Gallery is showing fifty of his paintings in a solo show titled Celebration: Paintings by Sohan Qadri from 1970-2010.

The exhibition is a collateral event of India Art Fair and includes oil impastos on canvas and ink dyes and incision on paper works. Many of these works are being exhibited for the first time.

Says Sunit Kumar, Director, Kumar Gallery: “ The exhibition includes oil impastos on canvas from 1970s & 80s to his later works of the 90s & the new millennium that were done using ink dyes and incision on paper. This is an odyssey of a pioneering Indian abstractionist.”

Sohan Qadri (1932-2011) was an internationally acclaimed artist deeply engaged with spirituality. Qadri abandoned representation early on in his long career, incorporating Tantric symbolism and philosophy into his vibrantly colored minimalist works. Born Sohan Singh in Punjab, India in 1932, Qadri was initiated at the age of 14 by Guru Bhikham Giri of Phagwara in yoga, tantra, dance and music and the young Qadri began to draw yantras in the guru’s shiva temple. In 1952, he worked as freelance photographer in Bombay Film Studio but soon withdrew and retreated into the cave temples of Himalayas to practice mediation. In 1955, he came back to study for Masters in Fine Art from Government College of Shimla and became Sohan Qadri in devotion to his sufi master Ahmed Ali Shah Qadri.

Qadri is known as a yogi, sufi artist whose art is blessed with the divinity and spontaneous flow of spiritual bliss synonymous with aesthetic bliss. Following the resurgence in Indian art after India’ independence in 1947, the progressive artists stirred up another wave of movement parallel to the happenings in the west. In the 1960s, a spiritually oriented surge of a high point culture of yoga, the lost knowledge, was brought to light by some of our saints and masters. For contemporary artists, this was a discovery of new avenues for their creative expression. Qadri by the 60s has made rapid strides reaching the heights of a purely abstract phase. He distilled Tantric symbolism into his own abstract, modernist language using broad areas of open color, capturing the northern landscape and sky of his Scandinavian surroundings. Although he began his career in the 1950s painting in oil on canvas, he worked on paper from the mid 1980s onwards. He covered the surface of the paper with structural effects by soaking it in liquid and carving it in several stages while applying inks and dyes. In the process, the paper was transformed from a flat, two-dimensional surface into a three-dimensional medium. The repetition of careful incisions on the paper was an integral part of his meditation—and, in fact, his process evolved out of his desire for an effortless method of creation in tune with his yogic practice. 

Qadri has been quoted in the book that accompanies the show: “Painting is a total and complete visual expression for me. I use colour’s full and innocent power field similar to the deep state of meditation – Nirvikalpa. I keep my cleverness and concern down. A paining is not a riddle. It is joy and ecstasy.”

In 1966, Qadri left India for East Africa, Europe and North America and later had studios in Zurich, Paris and Toronto and participated in more than forty one-man shows, in Bombay, Vienna, Brussels, London, Oslo, Stockholm, Montreal, Toronto, Los Angeles and New York. He passed away in 2011.

Related Events : Exhibitions
EXHIBITION "Celebration" Solo Show of artworks by Sohan Qadri at Kumar Gallery, 56, Sunder Nagar Market > 20th January to 5th February 2017 EXHIBITION "Celebration" Solo Show of artworks by Sohan Qadri at Kumar Gallery, 56, Sunder Nagar Market > 20th January to 5th February 2017 Reviewed by DelhiEvents on Sunday, February 05, 2017 Rating: 5

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