"Sublime Lands" an exhibition of paintings by Manoj Kachangal at Visual Arts Gallery, IHC, Lodhi Road > 11am-7pm on 21st-25th July 2012
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Entry : Free
Place : Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre (IHC), Lodhi Road, New Delhi-110003
Parking : Gate No. 1 to 3 ( Cars ), Gate No. 2 ( Bikes & Bicycles )
Parking : Gate No. 1 to 3 ( Cars ), Gate No. 2 ( Bikes & Bicycles )
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Event Details : Manoj Kachangal brings to Delhi select 50 works – some as large scale as 7 feet by 6 feet. Curated by Johny M.L., the show has been culled from the works done in the last three years (2009-2012).
Kachangal’s paintings are bright, textured landscapes and yet they are not just realistic renditions of what he sees around him. A viewer would feel that he/she has seen these landscapes somewhere; either in a real journey or in the flights of fancy. These landscapes evoke nostalgia and yet, the more one moves closer towards these enigmatic lands, they seem to transform from the mundane to the sublime or to the ethereal making his paintings both alluring and intriguing.
Kachangal says, “In the last three years, there has been an astonishing change in my paintings. Earlier I used to work in monochromatic colours which were replaced by a bright and aggressive colour palette. The memories of the Semul and Palaash flowers, which have remained in my memory from my childhood days, crept into my work and their colour and form became the metaphor for my voice against violence, corruption and terrorism in today’s society.”
Says curator Johny M.L., “In his works, the centre of focus is not just about creating a harmonious composition but it is all about expressing the artist’s world view. Kachangal cannot be anything else other than a harmonious individual whose life’s philosophy is to be one with the rhythm of nature. As he believes so much in the music of nature and the power of creativity in expressing the same music in visual or verbal terms (as he is a poet too), he should also believe the chaos that nature creates within itself once in a while. And he does believe in these upheavals of nature, its violence and rapturous movements. According to him being an abstract artist does not mean that he should keep away from the problems around him. An artist should reflect upon beauty as well as terror because beauty occurs when the chaotic terror is contained and regulated, and terror happens when beauty forgets to articulate itself within its given ingredients. Kachangal believes that human beings could be the most beautiful beings in the world but they forget their own beauty and indulge in violent acts, and as an artist who seeks harmony cannot look away from the chaos created by these ‘otherwise’ beautiful creatures. Hence, each of his canvases, however calm and serene they look, encapsulates a contained violence also. Through aesthetic mediation, he transcends this terror of nature and human nature into ‘Sublime Lands’.”
Several of his paintings have the hallmark features of criss-crossing knife strokes, horizontal planes that run parallel, the bindu which for the artist is a symbolic representation of all celestial planets including sun, moon and earth besides being a point of gravitation and focus, each painting vibrates with a different passion and rhythm.
Says Kachangal; “The first message of any art should be to appeal visually to a viewer. I don’t think I deliberately give out any message with my work but the conditions prevailing around us do affect my mental state and through that, my work. For instance, the terrorist attack on Indian Parliament and thereafter continuous attacks on country disturbed my mental peace. Everybody is competing with each other and in that competition, they have cremated morality. The aggressive colour of my paintings is the voice against such violence. The message through my paintings is that now the time has come for people to take aggressive action against terrorism, corruption and awake from sleep.”
Son of a rural school teacher in Madhya Pradesh who made marbles out of stones as a hobby and grandson of a farmer, Kachangal was always interested in the flora and fauna around him. His conversations were mostly with the ducks, birds, domestic animals and the plants and trees around him. During childhood, when he visited his grandfather working in the fields, he witnessed the expanse of earth, its undulations, its changing complexions, its waving heads and so on and they remained in him. As an art student, when he first witnessed a town, what influenced him first were the expanses limited by the buildings. For Kachangal, the buildings were forms that gave contours to the space. His liking for cityscapes started then and there.
“Nature has been my most important influence. Situations in life have been my guru,” says the artist. “I was fond of travelling...The way I looked at nature was not imitative, it was analytical. This has been my real teacher.” This does not mean that he is an escapist who runs away from reality and takes refuge in the beauties and bounties of nature. He is a close observer of the changes in the socio-political scenario of the country and is very keen to analyse and understand the changes that take place in the international scenario also.
Deeply rooted in the history of abstraction and folk and tribal traditions of our country, Kachangal draws a lot of inspiration from the rural and folk works of art. “I have also always admired the works of S. H Raza, Ram Kumar, Gaitonde, and J. Swaminathan. They have great spontaneity in their work,” says the artist who enjoys mostly working on a vertical format so that he can bring all the five elements of nature in one go. In an ascending plane we could see him depicting earth, fire, water, air and sky. The strokes, slashes and the rolls that he uses to build up the surface is so defined that one could see that each layer has a special meaning to it.
About the artist : Manoj Kachangal was born in Shadhora, MP, India on July 5, 1979. He did MFA in painting from Institute of Fine Arts, Indore in 2003. In 2001, Madhya Pradesh Kala Parishad, Bhopal honoured him with Raza award. His art works were auctioned at Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai – 2006 and Millennium Turks at Hotel Trident Hilton, Gurgaon – 2008. There are about 20 major solo shows including Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai – 2009, Apparo Art Gallery, Chennai – 2009, The Doors of Perception, Visual Arts Gallery, New Delhi – 2008, In Search of the Abyss, Mon Art Gallerie, Kolkata – 2008, Dhoomimal Art Center, New Delhi – 2007, Antaryatra, Nehru Center Art Gallery, Mumbai – 2007, A Consecration of Space, Marvel Art Gallery, Ahmedabad – 2006. Many important group shows held across the country Includes Tao Art Gallery, Cima Art Gallery, Emami Chisel Art, Crimson the art resource, Jammat Art Gallery, Gallery Nvya, Art Konsult, Religare Arts, and Participated in some group shows abroad. A book on the art of Manoj Kachangal “Doors of Perception” was published by Bharatiya Jnanpith, New Delhi in 2008, which was edited by Ratnottama Sengupta, and a documentary film on Manoj Kachangal “Doors of Perception” was produced by Kalaroop Films in 2008, which was directed by Pravesh Bhardwaj. He has participated in many important Art Camps.
Related Events : Paintings & Drawing Exhibitions | Exhibitions
"Sublime Lands" an exhibition of paintings by Manoj Kachangal at Visual Arts Gallery, IHC, Lodhi Road > 11am-7pm on 21st-25th July 2012
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Wednesday, July 25, 2012
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