Tag Archives: artist

An artist who depicts nature only naturally

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AJIT KUMAR DAS was born in 1957, son of a laundry man (washer man). From an early age, he became fascinated with the wonderful  colours of the textiles that his father washed. He became involved with traditional fabric printing and design. Today, Das is recognised as one of India’s foremost natural dye painters.

 

Das paints on cloth using natural dyes, rather than artificially created colours. He uses dyes derived ed from sources such as, for example,  pomegranate rind, turmeric, fermented iron solution, indigo, and madder. He applies them using bamboo brushes and handmade quills. The colours are fixed using alum as mordant. With decades of experience and experimentation,  he is able to use the natural dyes to produce interesting colourful effects.

 

At his exhibition held in a  magnificent gallery in the Kolkata Centre for Creativity, we were able to view more than 20 of his paintings. All of them feature closely observed natural objects, such as foliage, birds, and fish, all arranged in patterns on the textiles. Some of these compositions are naturalistic. In others, Das has arranged the details from nature to produce lovely patterns.

 

We were fortunate to have been at the inauguration of the exhibition, during which the soft-spoken Das discussed his works with a panel of invited guests. From what I could gather, the panellists were more interested in the current state of natural dye crafts than the artist’s works on display. I am pleased that we made the journey from central Kolkata to the outlying district of Anandapur to see the exhibition and to learn a little about the use of natural dyes in traditional methods of textile making.

An artist who works and lives in Kolkata

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WHEN VIEWING ARTWORK or listening to music, my reaction  to, and enjoyment of it is governed by my initial visceral feelings that it evokes. If these feelings are satisfactory, my interest and enjoyment of the art increases, and I might begin to delve more deeply into understanding what the creator is trying to convey with his or her work.

 

My initial reaction to the oil paintings and ink drawings by Kolkata based artist Debajyoti Roy were very positive. Each of his works on display appealed to me. Many of the images are in black ink on white paper. A couple of larger paintings were more colourful, created with oil colours and inks.

 

 Some of the works in ink reminded me a little of Chinese or Japanese calligraphy. The works are both abstract and at the same time somewhat figurative. Yet, as I studied them, they gave me the feeling that they are abstractions of reality, often of biological phenomena.  As Roy explained in the exhibition catalogue:

“When someone engages with a piece of art, it is inevitable to interpret its visual aspects. Still, the essence lies in deeper inquiries that provoke interpretation of the perception and reality.”

I felt that this was certainly the case with what I saw of his creations.

 

Debajyoti Roy has created a set of images that are intriguing both visually and intellectually. It is a shame that his exhibition at the Jogen Choudhury Centre for Arts in south Kolkata is ending soon (on 11 January 2025). If you happen to be in Kolkata before it ends, it is well worth viewing.

Pleasing pictures in a gallery next to London’s Fitzroy Square

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AT FIRST SIGHT, there seems to be little content in the 17 paintings on show at the Tristan Hoare Gallery in London’s Fitzroy Square until the 13th of December 2024. It is not long before you realise that these images that contain larges expanses of colour are quite pleasing and visually intriguing. The artworks, all of which were created in 2024, are by Vipeksha Gupta (born 1989) who lives and works in New Delhi (India). As I looked at her work, I was reminded of the paintings by Mark Rothko in which the viewer is confronted with large areas of colour. In Rothko’s case, the borders between one colour area and its neighbour are deliberately ‘fuzzy’, whereas Vipeksha Gupta defines these transitions more sharply, yet not completely abruptly.

The gallery’s website (https://tristanhoaregallery.co.uk/exhibitions/71-ebullience-vipeksha-gupta/overview/) explained:

“The subtle abstraction of her work is seen within the repeated marks, geometries and the resistant voids made within the material. The surfaces of these works are generated through the iteration of small units into patterns that the artist then proceeded to render dynamic through gestures of rupture, incision, or slippage. She created folds, hinges or selvages of light, around which darkness could pivot and ripple. Gupta carefully plays with the structure of the paper, creating an interplay between illumination and shadow. This use of light shifts the narrative of her work as these folds generate movement, granting fluidity to the deep and mesmerising colours which she carefully crafts.” Abstraction is art often a creator’s way of distilling the essence of something that could also be represented more obviously as a recognisable physical object or scene. In Gupta’s case, she seems to be experimenting with her media (Fabriano paper [handmade with cotton fibre], paint pigments, graphite, and charcoal) to create subtly interesting visual effects for the eyes of the paintings’ viewers to enjoy. In this, she is successful. What at first viewing appeared to be organised areas of colour can be seen to be more complex and interesting the longer one looks at them. In addition, these paintings are somewhat soothing to look at.

Dragons in Mayfair and an artist from Pakistan

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ONE GREY SEPTEMBER afternoon, we stepped into the Almine Rech gallery in London’s Mayfair a few days before its wonderful exhibition of paintings, “Summer of Dragons”, by Hiba Shahbaz was due to end (on the 28th of September 2024). Each of the works on display depict dragons, and some of them also include human figures, often scantily dressed.

Hiba was born in Karachi, Pakistan. She studied Indo-Persian miniature painting in Lahore’s National College of Art. Then, she studied in the USA at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn (New York City), where she was awarded her Master of Fine Arts degree. She now lives and works in the USA.

The skills she gained while training to paint Indo-Persian miniatures can be seen in the much larger paintings, which are on display at Almine Rech. Some of the paintings evoked memories of Chinese or Japanese art. Others depict dragons in the company of naked women. All the paintings, including some wooden boxes decorated with paintings, were completed in 2024. I suspect that had she remained in Pakistan and produced the same images, those containing the nudes might have been severely frowned upon.

We left the gallery, feeling very satisfied with what we had seen. Although the clouds above us had become more threatening, the visual experience of the exhibition brightened our moods.

Discovering the versatility and creativity of an artist born in Lancashire

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UNTIL AUGUST 2024 when I visited Salford, I believed that there was little that excited me about the work of the artist Laurence Stephen Lowry (1887-1976). My first impression of this artist was back in the 1970s and ‘80s, when reproductions (posters) of his paintings of industrial landscapes crowded with stick-like depictions of people were popular items in print shops of the Athena chain. I liked the pictures, but there seemed to be little variety amongst the paintings that were reproduced for sale.

My appreciation of Lowry’s art was not improved after seeing a special exhibition of his paintings held at Tate Britain in 2013. The paintings were badly displayed. There were too many of them crowded on to the walls of the galleries. They were so densely packed into the gallery that they were difficult to examine carefully. As far as I can remember, there was little difference between the subject matter depicted in the paintings. Most of them were of the kind that I had seen reproduced in the Athena shops. I came away from the exhibition neither being impressed by it nor having gained more admiration for Lowry.

So, in August 2024 when we headed for The Lowry, a modernistic cultural centre at Salford Quays in Greater Manchester, which contains a collection of artworks by Lowry, my enthusiasm was somewhat dampened. The Lowry itself is a successfully adventurous example of modern architecture, which is well worth seeing. It contains a gallery devoted to the works of LS Lowry. Our visit to this gallery, which contains about 400 of his artworks, was, as the saying goes, ‘mind-blowing’. First of all, in comparison with the 2013 exhibition at the Tate, the works of art are extremely well displayed. Secondly, and more importantly, what we saw completely changed my mind about Lowry’s works.

Although there were several of Lowry’s works in the style favoured by customers of Athena’s outlets, these wonderful pictures were outnumbered by other images which demonstrate Lowry’s versatility as an artist. Lowry painted many faces and portraits, all of which convey the personalities of the people portrayed and the artist’s sometimes quirky or humorous perceptions. There are numerous images – both sketches and paintings – of ships. There are evocative landscapes devoid of people. Most surprising to me, are his paintings of seascapes, which are so brilliant that they put Lowry alongside Turner in his ability to capture the sea on canvas. Apart from paintings, there are numerous sketches and ‘doodles’ on display, each one of which demonstrates Lowry’s skill as a draughtsman.

The immense variety of what is on display in the gallery in The Lowry demonstrates the amazing diversity of LS Lowry’s depictions of life in Lancashire and elsewhere. The exhibition at Salford Quays opened my eyes to his brilliance, and now I realise how wrong I was when I came to a judgement of his talents before having discovered how wide a range of art he created so skilfully.

He painted artworks on the floor using a household broom

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ED CLARK (1926-2019) WAS born in New Orleans. He was an Afro-American. In 1944, at the age of 17 he joined the US Army Airforces. After the war, he received US Government financial assistance for further education, help given to those who had served in the military during WW2 (the GI Bill). He studied art in Chicago before moving to Paris (France). He arrived there as a competent figurative painter, but soon became fascinated with abstraction, such as practised by Picasso, Matisse, and Braque.

Although he was a competent portraitist, Clark began to question the value of realistic figurative painting when photography could do the job so well. He moved to creating works that were mainly abstract. Many of his paintings are on display at the Turner Contemporary Gallery in Margate until the 1st of September 2024.

Ed Clark with a broom

The paintings that we viewed at Margate are exciting and most of them are almost, if not completely, abstract. For most of his creative life, Clark worked in an interesting way. First of all, he painted with his canvases spread out on the floor. This way, he explained in a film being shown at the exhibition, his paint was not subjected to gravitational pull. Most artists paint on surfaces which are far from horizontal – on easels, for example. This means that the wet paint is subject to gravitational pull before it has dried. By painting on the floor, Clark explained, this small but significant gravitational drag does not occur.

Another distinctive feature of the way Clark worked was his choice of brushes for applying the paint. He did not use artists’ paint brushes. Instead, he threw batches of paint onto his horizontal canvases and worked them into his pictures using ordinary domestic brooms, such as are normally used to sweep the floor. This is illustrated in the film, and the effects he produced using sweeping movements are beautiful and ingenious. In addition to brooms, he also applied paint with his hands, rubbing the paint into the canvas. Clark described that by working on the floor he became more intimately involved with his creations.

We had come to the Turner Contemporary to view some sculptures by Lynda Benglis, and had never heard of Ed Clark. However, after seeing the superb exhibition of his creations, we have become his fans.

From rural Cornwall to the Royal Academy in London

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ONE OF MY FAVOURITE National Trust properties in England is Trerice, which is about 2.3 miles south of the Cornish town of Newquay – not one of my favourite places in Cornwall.  We visit the house and gardens at Trerice every time we spend time in Cornwall, and always discover soothing there that we had not noticed before.

This tine (June 2024), one of the volunteers working in the house pointed out a painting by John Opie (1761-1807). I had not come across his name before. Our informant told us that he had been born in Cornwall, and thought that he had been involved with the establishment of the Royal Academy. He was born at Trevallas between St Agnes and Perranporth, both of which are not far from Trerice. At an early age, his artistic talents became evident, but his father, a carpenter, wanted John to become a carpenter. A physician, Dr Wolcot, met him at the place where he was an apprentice, and reecognising John’s artistic skills, paid for him to be released from his apprenticeship. Wolcot encouraged Opie, and by the start of the 1790s, he was a successful portraitist in Cornwall.

In 1781, Wolcot took Opie to London, where his works were admired by great artists of the time including Sir Joshua Reynolds, who compared John’s work to that of Caravaggio and Velasquez. A year later, Opie began working independently of Wolcot, who had been supporting him up until then. An acquaintance of Dr Wolcot introduced Opie to the court of King George III. This led to Opie being commissioned to paint portraits of people of high rank in English society and royalty. In 1886, he was elected a full member of the Royal Academy, and in 1805 he was appointed a professor in that esteemed institution.

There are three paintings by Opie hanging on the walls of Trerice house. One is a portrait, and another a self-portrait. The third, which depicts three people playing cards, is a copy of the same picture that can be seen at Petworth house. The version at Trerice is believed to have been painted by Opie and others in his studio. Each of the three people in it have smiles. It is thought that in this painting, Opie was experimenting with the depiction of smiling. Although attractive, this picture is not as attractive as his other two paintings in Trerice.

It is always pleasant to re-visit places, and always exciting to discover something one had missed on earlier trips to that same location. As well as the lovely interiors at Trerice, the gardens surrounding it are always a joy to behold.

He lived and painted in and around London’s Hampstead district

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TWO HALF-BROTHERS from India were both artists, and spent time creating artworks in and around Hampstead. Lancelot Ribeiro (1933 – 2010) was one of them, and the other was his older and more famous brother Francis Newton Souza (1924-2002). Today (23rd of June 2024), we dashed up to Hampstead’s Burgh House to see an exhibition of works by Souza created when he lived in Hampstead and Belsize Park. This small, but superb exhibition closes today.

Born in Portuguese Goa, Souza studied art at the prestigious JJ School of Art in Bombay. A participant in the Quit India Movement, he was expelled from that school in 1945 when he pulled down a Union Jack flag at a school celebration. Souza migrated to the UK in 1949. By 1955, he was already making a success in London’s contemporary art world.

In London, Souza first lived in Paddington, then North Kensington, and by the mid-1950s, he had moved to Hampstead. By 1961, he had made enough money to buy a large house – number 9 Belsize Park. He remained there until he moved to the USA in 1968.

The exhibition handout (produced by London’s Grosvenor Gallery) described Souza as an Expressionist artist who:

“… conveyed the fear and anguish of the generation.”

One of the great fears was that of nuclear weapons. Souza became an anti-nuclear activist, taking part, for example, in the Aldermaston Marches. Three of the paintings at the exhibition, “The Mad Prophet of New York”, “The Apocalypse”, and “Oedipus Rex”, reflected Souza’s reaction to nuclear weaponry, and were painted during his time in the Hampstead area.

At least two of the paintings we viewed reflected Souza’s life in northwest London. One of them depicts a church in Chalk Farm (near Belsize Park), and the other, a parody of Picasso’s 1907 “Demoiselles d’Avignon”, has the title “Young Ladies of Belsize Park”.

The paintings were hung in the well-lit Peggy Jay Gallery in Burgh House, and were accompanied by informative panels. It is a shame that this excellent exhibition was only open for a few days (19th to 23rd of June 2024). I am glad that we made the effort to see it.

A teacher at school and a painting at Sotheby’s auction house

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This painting on display at Sotheby’s in New Bond Street was created by Sir John Kyffin Williams (1918-2006). He was born in Wales on the island of Anglesey.

When I was a pupil at London’s Highgate School (between 1965 and 1970), Kyffin Williams taught art at the school. He was the senior art master between 1944 and 1973. I was fortunate to have attended a few of the painting sessions He supervised.

In 1968, Kyffin visited the Welsh settlement in Patagonia. After his return to England, he gave a fascinating talk about his trip to us at the school. I attended this, and still remember some if what he related.

A few years ago, we drive to Anglesey to see his work at the Oriel Mon gallery near his birthplace, Llangefni.

Seeing this painting at Sotheby’s brought back happy memories.

A Nigerian artist near London’s Edgware Road

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OTOBONG NKANGA WAS born in Kano (Nigeria) in 1974. Her artistic training was carried out in Ile Ife (Nigeria), then in Paris (France). Now, she lives and works in Antwerp (Belgium). I doubt that I would have come across her work had we not visited the Lisson Gallery near London’s Edgware Road, where some of her artworks are on display until the 3rd of August 2024.

The exhibition contains sculptures, two attractive tapestries, and several framed works on paper. The sculptures, which are pleasant enough, are made with materials including clay, glass, and fibres. A leaflet with a text written by the artist describes how she is portraying her connections with nature. Without this text, I would have been hard pressed to realise what she described.

What impressed me most in the exhibition were Nkanga’s delicately executed framed works on paper. These, more than the other exhibits, convinced me that she is a highly talented artist. As I compared them to the sculptural works, I was remined of my thoughts about the artist Damien Hirst. At first, I thought that his works were interesting although often gimmicky, and did not display his deepest artistic feelings. I changed my mind about his inherent talents when, some years ago, I saw an exhibition of his paintings at the White Cube Gallery in Bermondsey. Great artists like Picasso and David Hockney, who are known for their experimental exploration of artistic expression, were, in their younger days, highly skilled exponents of what might be considered ‘traditional’ composition style. This was what I felt about the framed works on paper by Nkanga – although she clearly enjoys experimenting with a variety of media (including with recorded sounds – a soundscape, which is included in the exhibition), she is clearly able to express herself beautifully in the traditional art of sketching and painting.

Had we enough wall space and sufficient spare cash, I would have happily bought several of Nkanga’s lovely works on paper.