EXHIBITION "Sketches, Scribbles, Drawings & Recent Works" a solo show by late artist Master K. G. Subramanyan at Aakriti Art Gallery Pvt. Ltd, F-213/A, Old M .B Road, Lado Sarai > 30th July to 27th August 2016

Time : 11:00 am - 7:00 pm (Sunday Closed)  Add to Calendar 30/07/2016 11:00 27/08/2016 19:00 Asia/Kolkata EXHIBITION "Sketches, Scribbles, Drawings & Recent Works" a solo show by late artist Master K. G. Subramanyan Event Page : http://www.delhievents.com/2016/07/exhibition-sketches-scribbles-drawings.html Aakriti Art Gallery Pvt. Ltd, F-213/A, Old M .B Road, Lado Sarai, New Delhi - 110030 DD/MM/YYYY - Exhibition on View

Entry : Free

Venue : Aakriti Art Gallery Pvt. Ltd, F-213/A, Old M .B Road, Lado Sarai, New Delhi - 110030
Venue Info : www.aakritiartgallery.com | Map | Nearest Metro Station - 'Saket(Yellow Line)'

Event Description : EXHIBITION "Sketches, Scribbles, Drawings & Recent Works" a solo show by late artist Master K. G. Subramanyan.

This exhibition will serve as a window of this master artist’s new creations which he wanted to showcase to all art lovers. These works are on handmade papers & colored gouache which gives a wonderful impact of the works showcased at the exhibition.

When this exhibition was conceived, legendary Master K. G. Subramanyan was at his peak. The news of his death after a brief illness on 29th June in Baroda brought a sense of despair and gloom for us. Through this exhibition, Aakriti Art gallery & Seagull Foundation for the Art offer its homage to the venerable Master.
In the present body of work, one may notice the capacity of harnessing single forms to plural functions which has been the hallmark of Master’s work and is visible here in the present show as well.  However narratively inclined many of these pieces done in either ink on handmade paper or colored gouaches or reversely done on acrylic sheets, their importance as a whole is that they remind us of one occasion of permanence that seems to lurk in an elucidation. 

Even at the age of ninety two, he was at the peak. His paintings were done on walls, on glass, acrylic sheets, handmade paper, and canvasses.  The quality of his attention, the unlikely subtlety and boldness, the harmony he created of tensions, ambiguities, volume, light, elusive moments speak of alienation, simulacra. In the ‘reverse paintings on acrylic sheet’, figurative references, always elusive become less and less direct as in the other paintings, simultaneously the implied vantage point become more ambiguous.  The whole process of his recent work represents a physical engagement with technical aspect and the psychological meditative aspect which always elevates.  The large ‘Untitled’ sized 24x 30 inches- tilts away from the viewer , its central spine receding toward the top as it courses across everly spaced parallel, horizontal black lines establishes a kind of non spatial field , where illusionistic flatness a white grid in the lower right quadrant struggles to counter act. He considers his jagged figures- fierce goddesses with as much relish and pith as a canny, a leitmotif of animals such as monkeys, dogs or lions, enticing horned goats to be actual objects positioned on a stained field. 

Juxtaposed to the whiteness are a few darker lightning like brushstrokes that reveal the keen sense of instinctive balance and inner vivaciousness that are true hallmark.  “My main interest was once in the passage of the objective to the abstract. Abstract to mean here an image of relative anonymity. Which allowed it a variety of interpretations. Gave it the ability to play various visual roles.” -He once said in an interview to Prof.R. Sivakumar in Scroll.

There is a lot of truth in the commonly held view of K.G. Subramanyan as a bridge figure between avant garde and the emergent radical Indian Contemporary Art, but it is also an oversimplification. He repudiated avant-garde in the early sixties in the thick of modernism totally. “The kind of education we impart makes people despise manual arts and skills” He once said.

Though he continued to paint largely in gouache more like that of the paintings of the mid to late 80’s and later, we are encountered by “those enchanted places”, “those delightful spaces” he never wanted to be any more precise.


Here in this exhibition painted spaces are mainly large to relatively small formats, working with closer to the surface with a sense of intimacy in small and a sense of distance and space.  Some of the works have a sense of monumental and markers used instinctively to stimulate the surface. Within these painted spaces there is intense application of mind, a narration, nuances; obviously, the energy made visible reaches a certain grandeur, and one has to watch closely the expressive visual modulation of the color grid into which are woven interlocking planes which are so fragile that they may go unobtrusive .  His spontaneity and ability to create compelling compositions are features that we get to see in this show. His work reinforces the sense that the evocation of a quiet, nondenominational inwardness that trembles the soul and stir poets.

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