"Ember" a solo show by Alok Bal at Latitude 28, F 208 GF, Lado Sarai > 10th April-20th May 2013

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Time : 11:00 am - 7:00 pm (Sundays closed)

Entry : Free

Place : Latitude 28, F 208 GF, Lado Sarai, New Delhi - 110030

Venue Info : www.latitude28.com | Nearest Metro Station - 'Saket(Yellow Line)'

Event Description : Bhavna Kakar presents 'Ember' a solo show by Baroda-based artist Alok Bal.
Including nearly 45 works – canvases, paper works, work in wood, glass and found human waste like used cloth, plastic, medicine wrappers, pipes etc – the show according to the 43-year-old artist has been called Ember because it is about “the subject of the human suffering, which is caused by the corrupt socio-political system. Also the system which we create within ourselves gives more suffering. The result is an imbalance in our inner and outer selves which leads us finally towards destruction.”
Says Bhavna Kakar, Director, Latitude 28: “We have had a long association witth Bal spanning almost a decade now but this current body of work is so dynamic in its diversity, that we wanted to show a solo. This show comes after a gap of six years since he last showed a solo in Delhi and his oeuvre has become even more fascinating since then. While his paintings are serene and metaphorical, his works in found human waste, wooden box and glass show his versatility in handling various mediums.”
Born in Rourkela, Orissa in 1969, Bal’s childhood was spent in the midst of nature, surrounded by lovely hills, dense forests, vast cultivated lands and beautiful riverbeds quite in contrast to the present realities. After securing a formal degree in Commerce, he decided to study art. The artist completed his B.F.A. (1998), followed by a Post-Diploma in Painting from M.S. University, Baroda (2001). At the very onset of his career, one could see the influenced of British and American Pop-Art, but since then he has found an idiom that is very much his own. Bal’s works represent man’s innate instinct to dominate nature and he uses both irony and skill to express his fascination and disillusionment with life in a metropolis.
The metaphorical usage of serene colours, the flying dainty figures, the scratches, the burden a man carries, the shrubs growing carelessly inside houses, animal trapped inside thorn like growth, are all motifs stitched together with excellent skill. Bal’s work are replete with barren landscapes and endless vistas of grey-blacks except a solitary structure or two.
“The main inspiration is my surroundings, people, life, nature and, of course, my inner self,” says Bal, “and like my previous body of work, this show too is about cityscapes, but with a difference. Previously I would focus on the exterior, but this time, I have tried to get into the interior, the more psychological aspects of life of urban human beings.”

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