| They are hip, young and raring to go. Far from wearing the paint-splattered look, the city's young artists are painting, networking, partying and having fun. And they are giving art new perspectives — from abstracts and installations to video and performance art — breaking traditional boundaries and painting new paradigms.
Many have been born in Mumbai while others have made the city their creative playgrounds. With lives and experiences as colourful as their creations, their trained eye casts a unique artistic vision of the city. From party perennials to potential masters, some seek the spotlight while others let their paint-brushes do the talking. Simply Mumbai looks at a cross-section of the city's creative crowd and comes away inspired. PAYAL KHANDWALA
"I'm not a pseudo-intellectual and I don't paint for a higher cause. I paint because I want to, its therapy," says Payal Khandwala of the diminutive frame and large kolh-lined eyes. She calls herself a nerd, a control freak and an obsessive perfectionist, and two solo shows and overwhelming response later, "a mascot for the young, hip and cool artist for the press, fortunately or unfortunately". With a third show currently underway, this artist who has dabbled in abstract and very minimalist parameters will now experiment with studies of 'The Female Nude'. "Drawing has always been my first love. It's freeing and it's simple," says Khandwala.
And to think she started off assisting Wendell Rodricks and Hemant Trivedi at Garden Vareli years ago and even studied fashion at SNDT.
But she soon wearied of fashion — "the drawing was the most exciting part". At 21, Payal moved to New York to pursue a degree at the Parsons School of Design. "I did my senior thesis on the Kama Sutra and presented it in a very Afro-pop, bright and modern fashion. That sold for $5,000 and everything just snowballed from there," says Payal. Between stints of cocktail waitressing and hostessing at restaurants, Payal painted and showed her first collection at Geeta Raheja's Fine Art Company in 2001. Her subsequent move back to India in 2002 was punctuated with a year in Barcelona and now she is back to paint the city any hue she pleases, making her a name to reckon with in the art world. And she is a recognisable face on the social circuit, with the aesthete in her showing up even in her Naga jewellery, Janpath kurtas and muslin from Manish market. Here's a promising artist and a style diva to boot. TEJAL SHAH
Photographer, film-maker, video artist and performer rolled into one, Tejal Shah's artistic oeuvre defies categorization. No wonder she is considered one of the city's most promising young artists. Born in Bhilai, Chattisgarh, Shah has called Mumbai home for the past six years. "Mumbai is my city. I was far more nervous before my first solo show here than a previous showing abroad. Here people follow your work and are familiar with your language," says Shah. And the diversity of her interests inherently influences her artistic language which was on ample display at the show 'What Are you?' at Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke in September 2006, where the artist presented video installations, photographs and sound pieces with wall text and mirrors.
The 28-year-old doesn't believe there are any distinctions in art.
"Film-making is very much an artistic medium. The stage has also opened up. My generation of artists is working with live performances, photography performances and video performances," says the artist, who likes to reflect on the tensile interaction between the audience and the work. "The presence of live bodies interacting with people creates something ephemeral. I believe performance art is very important to challenge the commoditization of art," says Shah.
The artist is also programmer for a film festival 'Larzish, Tremors of a Revolution', India's first ever International Film Festival of Sexuality and Gender Plurality. "Organizing Larzish has enabled me to reach and access a wide variety of video work," says Shah. She has shown her works extensively abroad and is now looking forward to a solo show at Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi and the Global Feminisms show at Brooklyn Museum, NYC. PRAJAKTA POTNIS
Her work has the translucent perceptibility and ability to turn the most mundane objects into works of art. Seemingly still-life, but on Prajakta Potnis' canvas kitchen utensils take on a life of their own, stuff toys and vegetables are enveloped in a childlike latency and mere flowers breathe delicately.
>From teaching art to MBA students for studio rent, to debuting in 2002
with'Stepping Out' a group show at Guild Art Gallery, this Thane girl got her first break soon after college. The 26-year-old masters in painting from the J J School of Arts, draws unerring inspiration from daily life and not supposedly lofty projections — an earnest simplicity of vision that unfolds in the form of knives, duvets and doll-houses bathed in pastels. "Every artist has different subjects they connect to. I love buying various objects that fascinate me, things people find securities in, and then I paint them like an object drawing," says the artist.
Potnis has won numerous awards and scholarships, including the Cum.
Dallas Award from the Arts Society of India, Mumbai (1997), the Camlin Award, Sir J J School of Arts, Mumbai (2002) and the INLAKS scholarship (2004-2005).
Busy at work at her Kandivali studio, Potnis says it is encouraging to see more people willing to support art. Married to fellow artist Justin Ponmany, she maintains a separate studio in Kandivali. "It's impossible to work together because our work is very different but it's great to have someone to talk about art to, someone to share your work and excitement with," smiles Potnis. The artist will soon be part of group show of six women artists called Soft Spoken, to be curated by Bose Krishnamachari. That, in two words, sums up Prajakta Potnis'
personality and her works.
PRADEEP L MISHRA
Originally from Tumsar, near Nagpur, Pradeep L Mishra moved to Mumbai in 1997 to study at the J J School of Arts. Having made the city his home now, this Dahisar resident derives inspiration from the metropolis' energy and people. "I consider painting a medium of communication between the artist and the viewer," says Mishra, who debuted in a group show at Viart Gallery in Delhi in 2004.
Mishra aims to make his art approachable for both the connoisseur and the lay person. Everyday objects and routine concepts make an almost photographic appearance on his canvasses and paper-works as he continually engages with his environment. "My work is not just about the objects but the relationship between the objects and portraiture of their belief systems," says Mishra who prefers to look at the life present even in inanimate objects. "Everything has a life. Non-living objects too disintegrate and die." It is perhaps this belief system that sees Mishra plant grass or rose-buds around his art works, a unique way of working with disparate mediums.
Mishra has also exhibited at Guild Art Gallery and Hacienda Art Gallery, Mumbai, at the World Social Forum and participated in various group shows. And with a solo show coming up this year, Mishra's artistic antenna is busy at work.
MANISH NAI
He is the jute specialist. This 28-year-old Borivali resident, a graduate from L S Raheja School of Art, found his medium and language through loss. When his father suffered huge losses in his jute business, Nai decided to put the surfeit jute to good use. There started a love affair that has lasted seven years. Nai saw his images in the jute and sought to create his own unique and intricate artistic idiom. "I create my design on computer and then translate it on canvas by plucking and pulling out jute threads," says the artist. Nai employs coarse or fine-grained dyed jute, butter paper, hand-made paper, water colours, etc to create his canvasses, giving it a collage-like appearance. This Gujarati artist held his fourth solo show in October 2006 at the Museum Art Gallery for Apparao Galleries and is also a winner of The Pollok Krasner Foundation Award for Art from New York. Nai has exhibited in Japan and Singapore too.
Interestingly, Nai lost a lot of his work in the July 26, 2005 downpour in Mumbai and that has shown up in his work. He is constantly experimenting with his medium and textures, employing jute to create various images, even dabbling in photography. He is currently taking his own surname quite literally ('Nai' means barber in Gujarati) and using discarded jute threads to create wigs which he later photographs. Married to fellow artist Aditi Joshi, Nai continues to work 16-hours a day in his studio only pausing for a lunch-break. His art is truly a labour of love. APNAVI THACKER
She's a Page Three regular. She has posed for the Zenzi calendar in all her bald-headed glory. She refuses to be slotted as a "main-stream" artist and prefers to swim against the tide. But there's more to Apnavi Thacker than her party presence and her unusual appearance.
Having lived in Geneva, Switzerland all her life, Thacker moved back to India nearly four years ago. "I've been painting graffiti since the age of 14," says the artist who has now moved on from spraying walls to "forging a system of belief like most veteran street artists".
"I have always been on the 'other' side of everything," says this self-confessedly impulsive and rebellious painter. No wonder six-foot high installations of urinals painted in gold, silver and bronze and visuals of vaginas people her art. The themes of urban chaos and gender and sexual tension, both issue close to her heart, are palpable in her works. "I thrive on Mumbai. That's where my inspiration comes from. My biggest issue currently is the urban planning chaos. The city seems to be moving every which way in a very haphazard manner," says Thacker, who lives and works in Worli and is currently working on a solo show to be held sometime in 2007.
And though Thacker prefers to be talked about because of her work, she doesn't mind the media attention her life garners. "It reminds me of the fifteen minutes of fame that Andy Warhol was talking about. But my work keeps me grounded," says Thacker. Index |
