It was 25th sept. 2009 , at around 11 am started a special Preview for invited people ART EXPO INDIA 2009, the much-awaited event on India’s art calendar, has been held at Nehru Centre, Mumbai last week. The who’s who of the art world including renowned artists, art experts, collectors, patrons and aspiring investors thronged the venue to celebrate the throbbing spirit of modern and contemporary Indian art.

Art Expo India aims to offer the wave of new Indian talent a perfect launch pad on the domestic and international market. An encouragement to young painters so that collectors notice them coupled with a boost to the culture of value-based investing in art is reflected in AEI’s program, which features a series of insightful talks on art related themes.

Acknowledged for her insight of contemporary art trends, Kay Saatchi discussed the nuances of the fine art of collecting art in conversation with in the inaugural session. She has co-curated several exhibitions for the Saatchi Collection. She vigorously promotes young artists in her role as the founding director of the Artists and Collectors Exchange.

Art expert Mallika Sagar Advani conversed with Kay Saatchi who elaborated on the intricate maze of relationships between an artist and a collector, between a dealer and an artist, and a dealer and a collector, hinting that the interlinking of interests has to be based on trust. She provided valuable tips on becoming a successful collector and also offered tips to aspiring curators and gallery owners

During her conversation with Mallika Sagar Advani at the inaugural talk session at Art Expo India 2009, art expert Kay Saatchi revealed at the outset that anticipation is the key when it comes to building your art collection.

She added: “The process involves immense amount of groundwork – visiting art schools, checking out shows at art galleries, spotting the new talent, and finding out who are the next art stars.” She narrated how she studied close to 600 artists’ works to pick her top 20 as part of a similar such exercise.

What are the attributes to watch out for in an emerging artist, she was asked, According to Kay Saatchi, coupled with a certain amount of skill, what she looks for is the artist’s commitment and passion to make art. Integrity and determination are necessary along with the natural talent, she emphasized.

Mallika Sagar Advani’s pertinent queries regarding the current complex dynamics of contemporary art and its evolving structure prompted responses from Kay Saatchi based on her deep understanding and practical experience. The conversation also touched upon various aspects like her role as a curator, her involvement in an artist’s career, the broader market mechanics, the transition to auction dominated art market from a gallery dominated one, the changed norms of collecting, maintaining and upgrading an art collection.

The moderator also tracked Kay Saatchi’s own evolution as an art collector-curator, seeking her opinion on things that create value in an artwork. It was an engrossing and entertaining discussion as Priyanka Sethi summed it up at the end, stating: “The conversation was stimulating, honest and extremely informative. The more, we think, we know about the art world, we find something new, something more interesting and something more exciting, and something even shocking every time. That’s the beauty and joy of art.” But then we need helping hand from experts like Mallika Sagar Advani and Kay Saatchi to discover it.


The Ashok Art Gallery is internationally known for one of its most important holdings: more than 2000 major works by the world's most significant Artists.Over the past years, as Ashok Art Gallery has become a major centre for contemporary visual art, the Gallery has built a strong collection of contemporary work of different artists, became a sponsor of the STANDUP-SPEAKOUT Artshow, Organized by Art Of Living Foundation and United Nations.Organized an International Contenmporary Art Exhibition including artists from USA, The Nederlands, Pakistan and India.We have also participated at Art Expo India Mumbai and India Art Summit New Delhi.

The Best art place on this globe.

Masters @ Ashok Art Gallery : Chandrasekhar Rao (1940-2004)
Chandrasekhar Rao was born in a small village of Polasara in Ganjam district of Orissa. As a Handicraft Designer, Chandrasekhar created 4000 creative designs from the existing patterns of the tradition. His association with the traditional craftsmen of different trades brought him near to their crafts as well as life. Chandrasekhar Rao was trained in the Indian Painting (Shantiniketan style) from Government Art College at Khallikote and possibly worked under the best of Gurus those were available in Orissa. While learning the art of painting, he was much into depicting the mythical subject matters to start with and later moved on into unexplored areas of human life, nature and their relationships.

Looking back at Chandrasekhar’s life, he seems to be comfortable with the immediate village environment and its habitants, and they are his chief protagonists through out, whether it is a rendering of Gita Govinda or Krishnalila; Village pond or a portrait or any subject matter for that matter. I am privileged to be with him, observing him closely, in life and on work. Every bit of experience is artistic; as he explains, ‘if you want to exaggerate a curve in a figure, just try it yourself to a maximum stretch and never beyond because bending, twisting, stretching or any thing of similar type should not affect the rhythm of the form, and it applies to a smile, yes’. One of the characters of his painting is line and one can see the beauty of an comprehensive line from one end of the tassar canvas to the other, breaking free- one rhythm, one stop respiration and the form emerges from it with tremendous force and energy - a real unique signature.

Colours and compositions were derived from Orissa and its several art forms. His introduction to the handicrafts, as being the Designer, helped him to acquire more knowledge and he transformed the cultural forms in contemporary art equally intelligently. Many artists, we have seen searching for the title after the composition and its validity, but Chandrasekhar always knew what he was doing. He never painted the elements or composed; he rather lived, enjoyed and interacted with the forms in the painting, making it a part of the entire scheme. Precisely, he was one of those painted characters who lived out of the canvas, with us and his family.

Many artists, toward the last phase of his life, started to criticise his work as a standard (as in ISI) falling short of understanding his ideas and creativity. Some have started to imitate him for livelihood and saleability even after knowing that his works cannot be replicated, but Chandrasekhar Rao was the one who lived above these petty state of affairs during his life, and will always remain out of reach of such traumatic human behaviour. He was with us all till 2004.

Chandrasekhar Rao’s achievements include, besides being the Handicraft Designer, an art teacher (for children too), the Chairmanship of Working Artists Association of Orissa. He has received Awards by State Lalit Kala for four times; Academy of Fine Arts, Calcutta; AIFACS, New Delhi; Bombay Art Society, Bombay; SCZCC, Nagpur; and many more. He has exhibited in Museum of Fine Arts, Chandigarh; Rashtriya Lalit Kala Kendra, Bhubaneswar; Bajaj Art Gallery and Jehangir Art Gallery Bombay; Crimson, Bangalore; Birla Academy of Art, Kolkata and many more.
This special collection has came directly from his son Sri Tarakeswar Rao, collected and available at Ashok Art Gallery.

The trend of contemporary art is changing and several makeover trials are in place where artist reframe his ideas in the format of rediscovering the self. Artistic transformations happen naturally but it might just be enforced in order to achieve certain purpose, while in the later the risk is considerably high. Turning the course of imagery in order to produce effectively throws new challenges before the artist. Often in contemporary, what we have seen is the fresh interpretation of the common subject; the one that we are associated with closely and familiar with the environment very dearly; comes in as a refreshing surprise to many.
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Beyond The Border an exhibition of Sajal Patra showing the work Spiritual Journey is one such painting, which depicts a ‘key’ on the left wall of the ghat that was left by the spiritual guru that symbolises the key of the world. The key here refers to the key of the mundane world that remained with the person till his spiritual journey begins. This conceptually reminds one, of the renaissance painting The Delivery of the Keys by Perugino in the Sistine chapel. The only notable difference was the absence of the human beings in Sajal Patra’s painting and similarity is the significance of the key. This narrative is a symbolic representation of Indian culture achieved through the vitality in a contemporaneous way. Keys seem to have fascinated Sajal in many ways and Mother Key is the other of its kind, symbolising mother to hold the solution to all the problems that surround the family and its affairs. Mother Key is a story that is told with simplicity and subtlety in an explicit manner through visual representation.

Sajal has experienced the nature intimately and successfully moulded the political and societal subjects with their own shifting character in time. Beyond Border is another example that cleverly finds a puppetry arrangement to the Indian border issue. It describes the cultural affinity that India has with its neighbour Pakistan and how politics overplays the issues. This demonstrate how human feelings turned slave through the containment of human values by the leaders (so called). The story is not fresh and it is believed to have been addressed by all medias, but the pathos Beyond Border contain, speaks of the suppressed truth somewhere touching the human life. Mother and Child is a unique combination of calf and trucked mother’s (dairy) milk. This interesting subject directly deals with the trading of milk that has somehow left the calf wondering for her mother. Somewhere down the line it seems while managing he man’s need, man has forgotten the nature of the animals that needs attention too.

Sajal’s journey from Ranchi through Bhubaneswar to Delhi has been equally interesting and it has impressed him with multi-faceted experience and exposure to the environmental conditions and the visual cultures too. His interaction with variety of people through this part of eastern India has intelligently placed in the visual version. Sajal Patra has matured with every trick of the trade and these works reflects his conceptual interpretations wonderfully well. Represented by Ashok Art Gallery , his works have been showcased at all Indian major art festivals and fairs, some of his works has been collected by international art collectors, as per his dedication towards creating Art works and on the value of his supreme artistic skill one can effortlessly say that he will be one the future perspective of contemporary Indian Art for sure. Sajal Patra works and lives in New Delhi, India.
Dr. Pradosh K. Mishra(art historian)
Associate Professor BHU



The Ashok Art Gallery is internationally known for one of its most important holdings: more than 2000 major works by the world's most significant Artists.Over the past years, as Ashok Art Gallery has become a major centre for contemporary visual art, the Gallery has built a strong collection of contemporary work of different , became a sponsor of the STANDUP-SPEAKOUT Artshow, Organized by Art Of Living Foundation and United Nations.Organized an International Contenmporary Art Exhibition including artists from USA, The Nederlands, Pakistan and India.We have also participated at Art Expo India Mumbai and India Art Summit New Delhi.

The Best art place on this globe.

KANTA KISHORE

Slums in Neighbourhood

Artists are exploring new media and techniques to convince the viewer in the present day. The range of subjects that the artist deals with today is intriguing and relevant. Indian art seems to have transformed from modesty to market and the journey has been interesting too. The turning points of art here depend heavily on the attitude of the artists and what we have noticed is the increase in the intellectual input with passing time. This has carried us forward from the agreement of the narratives in mythology and epics to negotiating society to human awareness of several factors. Our surrounding and social concerns have always motivated us to a new high. Kanta Kishore is no exception.

Kanta Kishore has picked the popular slum with a different perspective that essentially deals with the core of the subject. The effort by the dwellers to construct the beautiful and magnificent in the city remains in the most neglected part of the earth. Their struggle for existence depend on adversities of life and in the process, they sometimes smile up to their success, which is rare, and rest of the times, lament over their survival. In all these conditions, a pair of sleepers perhaps allows them to retain the honour of human while addressing the rough patches leading to life. The chaos of arrangement also depicts the lifestyle of people inhabit. However high or low they might go individually but collectively they remain intact to the nails that bind them to the ground. The insiders story of constructing a world imagined for the other rightly develop the concept of living.

The composition has deliberately caught our concern for the slum and its dwellers. The symbolic is apparent, expressive and transformed; it suggests the simplest of material in high coordination with installation art. The painting complements to the installation by making it look obvious and illustrative. Kanta Kishore has seemingly taken a defensive position in portraying the subject though several aggressive pointers are available to us. The approach to the subject is worth admiration. The awareness to uplift the downtrodden needs more application both politically and socially. The change is coming at a slow pace and it would appear significantly in future. The makeover through the artistic expression is to the concern is remarkable.
Sculpture Review by Dr. Pradosh Kumar Mishra(Art Hostorian)
Watch out for this growing talent in Art Expo India: Kantakishore Moharana


The Ashok Art Gallery is internationally known for one of its most important holdings: more than 2000 major works by the world's most significant Artists.Over the past years, as Ashok Art Gallery has become a major centre for contemporary visual art, the Gallery has built a strong collection of contemporary work of different artists.
Last year we became a sponsor of the STANDUP-SPEAKOUT Artshow, Organized by Art Of Living Foundation and United Nations.Organized an International Contenmporary Art Exhibition including artists from USA, The Nederlands, Pakistan and India.We have also participated at Art Expo India 2008 Mumbai and India Art Summit 2008 New Delhi.

Any work of art for that matter has certain ideas to deliver, but this seems to have engaged the viewer with more than one implication. Initially aimed at presenting the environmental issue, that is one of the phenomena, quite clearly depicted by many artists of the present day. It is uniformly received by the politicians, sociologists, scientists and artists as well. ‘The habitation in nature’ an exhibition showing Pradosh Swain’s recent works at Ashok Art Gallery.

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Concrete Demon illustrates a typical and unusual scene, amazing and interesting too. The manuscript unfolds to release Lord Rama with his attributes, bow and arrow, to kill the concrete mixture that is commonly seen at the construction sites. It has several layers of implication: dwelling between tradition and modern, oppression and liberty, nature and environmental hazard, mobility and stillness and so on. It presents a feeling of awareness and concern.

Rama, the maryada purusha, as he is commonly known and we believe had a genuine understanding of nature as he lived his significant part of life within nature, interacting with various aspects and adopting several laws of natural world. He is seen liberating the self to take on the direct fight once again with the demonic form (concrete mixture = Ravana) to bring back peace to the mankind unaware of the fact that in this corrupt world, what wins is not the environment but the brokers of nature, while the sufferer is entire world.

In the present day, Rama has become the source of inspiration to many; politically, environmentally, culturally, as people have conveniently adopted him. Now he has been reduced to a manuscript as an abode, cultivating the nature within the parameters of palm leaf. A simple narration that recreates the Rama in Odissi Pata painting form and symbolically covering him with the foliage, to relate nature in him; palm leaf as a major and popular medium in Orissan traditional art is placed intelligently to show the manuscript and a horrifying background depicting the uncertainty of human life. The composition is poised with intellectual input and social awareness.

The world is changing and also the attitude of man. Travel is part of human being’s life. With every passing day more and more information regarding the destinations are reaching us motivating us to explore the new area of substance. Reasons of such moves are many, ranging form family holidays to corporate leisure. Many natural sites are revisited and new sites introduced to us. We move from place to place encroaching the nature’s domain and without even being careful. Often we ignorantly spoil the nature and sometimes become more adventurous in misusing the resources. This has resulted in the natural devastation and we can feel the heat of global warming all through the globe. We have started paying the price for someone else’s fault. Towards Wind seems to present before us the nature that is supposed to nurture us, our lives and motivate our minds, inspire us to face new challenges, has now started throwing new challenges to us pointing its protection and expecting a little compassion and love for itself. We have reached a pitiable condition, where no road leads ahead.

A time would arrive when we would need a fan painted with nature (allegorical) in a hill top (station) to satisfy us from heat. The extent, as the artist has pointed, might go up to reaching near to the fan blades to occupy the most of air the fan delivers. The message is clear and loud, save it (nature) to be a part of it or stay alone to die hard.

The cities are now developing fast and at a disagreeable pace. The requirement of man is getting wider day by day. To achieve these desires one makes compromises with the nature, its habitants and the balance. We have significantly converted the animal’s bay purposefully to suit our ideals. So every other day we hear news about tiger creeping in to village and start shouting about the facing new danger. Rationally we have threatened their habitation in nature. The spread of the cities never care about the essential ‘other’. Fisher in Metro is just about that. In the image showing the kingfisher (namesake) sitting on a basket ball net (replacing the tree branches) and concentrating on a swimming pool (replacing the village pond), which is temporarily set on a spatula (showing its position), while a young woman is diving into the pool. This visual narrates the reality; of how the cities are facing structural conversion everyday, the danger of scarcity facing us today and its horrifying future and similar struggle.

Pradosh Swain has attempted global issues in simplest and readable visual term. What interests me is his concern about nature and its protection in order to avoid the Global Warming. ‘The message is not new’, as he explains, ‘and it is not educating too. I just paint to define my understanding of the subject’. He adds, ‘much has been spoken and delivered visually by the NGOs and similar volunteer organisations to mass through electronic and print media. But artist has his own creative view point that sometimes visualises the imagined future’. Let us not make big promises that are difficult to keep but small acts that are easy to follow in order to upkeep our environment. Is someone practising! Pradosh Swain works and live in Delhi, India.

Dr. P. K. Mishra (Art Historian)
Presently Serving as Associate Professor, BHU


The Ashok Art Gallery is internationally known for one of its most important holdings: more than 2000 major works by the world's most significant Artists.Over the past years, as Ashok Art Gallery has become a major centre for contemporary visual art, the Gallery has built a strong collection of contemporary work of different artists.
Last year we became a sponsor of the STANDUP-SPEAKOUT Artshow, Organized by Art Of Living Foundation and United Nations.Organized an International Contenmporary Art Exhibition including artists from USA, The Nederlands, Pakistan and India.We have also participated at Art Expo India 2008 Mumbai and India Art Summit 2008 New Delhi.