"Out of Frame" an Exhibition of Paintings by Prabal Roy at Lalit Kala Akademi, Rabindra Bhavan, Copernicus Marg > 13th to 19th January 2014
Time :
13th January : 5:00 pm - Inauguration by Smt. Suvra Mukherjee, Honourable First Lady of India
14th to 19th January : 11:00 am - 7:00 pm - Exhibition on View
Entry : Free
Place : Lalit Kala Akademi, Rabindra Bhavan, Copernicus Marg, Mandi House, New Delhi-110001
Venue Info : Events | About | Map | Nearest Metro Station - 'Mandi House(Blue Line)'
Area : Mandi House Area Events
Event Description : 'Out of Frame' an Exhibition of Paintings by Prabal Roy.
‘Enigmatic Visions’: The Works of Prabal Roy - by Anirudh Chari
The enigmatic visions of Prabal Roy succeed in alternately amusing, enchanting and puzzling the viewer with their astonishing juxtapositions and metamorphoses of imagery which centre on the figure of the clown and using visual sleight of hand convert mundane pictorial facts into something unusual.
His magical ciphers employ the tension of contradiction with both precision and perception. He is evidently not in accord with the society in which he lives but is too critical, ironical and sceptical in his way of thinking to believe his art can, in any way, reform it. His art is a visual instrument using which the viewer, through shock and surprise, may transcend convention and find a sliver of the essence of mystery.
Prabal Roy has reinvented the figure of the clown. Is he the clown he paints over and over again?
It does not really matter. His clowns are caught between the tragedy of their own lives and the job of making the audience forget the tragedy of theirs. At first, this may appear somewhat pathetic and naïve but is, in fact, a tender and evocative depiction of a poignant icon symbolic of hope, sacrifice and ultimate tragedy. In looking at Roy’s works, the viewer has to understand the pointlessness of trying to solve the visual puzzles therein. Seeing the puzzles is what matters most. He does not seek to be obscure; instead creates a complex, sophisticated visual world which attempts to rescue conventional vision from its obscurity. The tension between the fantastic – which is whimsical, capricious, extravagant, illusory and unsystematic – and the imaginative, which observes things and distorts through comparisons and combinations, is an intriguing one.
Roy’s great strength lies in his ability to conjure up visual poetry through an idea by invoking mystery.
There is voyeurism here together with surrealist incongruity which creates images of restrained unease and, sometimes, sexual tension. The epigrammatic force is especially strong when the artist reflects on alienation or loneliness. Often his colours are beautiful and invoke a world of the eerie and the fantastic, of displacement and uncertainty, of the mystifying and the recognizable. They depict moments where strange clowns ride bicycles and laugh their mirthless laughter. They also do away with preconceived notions of subject and style and by interspersing random images leading to a pictorial space which is arbitrary but aesthetically pleasing. The juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated ideas within dramatic settings suggests a significance and meaning which is not always easy to resolve. The enormous potential of this juxtaposition is well exploited by the artist who looks to disorient the viewer.
The sense of mystery through absurdity also implies a threat of melancholia. The long shadows and slightly elongated forms convey a frightening sense of darkness. These encounters, the synchronized presentation of the commonplace and the unexpected, of ambiguity and tension, of enchantment, mystery and peril is especially attractive. The internal complexities and contradictory meanings make these images not just visually stimulating but also fascinating subjects of analysis and exploration.
Roy belongs to a tradition in which artistic, political, religious, social and even linguistic culture is infused with a persistent hallucinatory quality. He destabilizes the sense of reality but renders it more personal and private as the instability is received and experienced by each viewer. There is a sense of the artist embracing mortality, loneliness and suffering in the midst of materiality. He understands the inner mystery of the human condition, that profound realization of the possibilities of mortal existence.
The intended effect of these works is to unsettle the viewer and the viewer in accepting the possibility of being unsettled experiences a sense of mystery which is embedded within a familiar, material reality.
Related Events : Exhibitions
13th January : 5:00 pm - Inauguration by Smt. Suvra Mukherjee, Honourable First Lady of India
14th to 19th January : 11:00 am - 7:00 pm - Exhibition on View
Entry : Free
Place : Lalit Kala Akademi, Rabindra Bhavan, Copernicus Marg, Mandi House, New Delhi-110001
Venue Info : Events | About | Map | Nearest Metro Station - 'Mandi House(Blue Line)'
Area : Mandi House Area Events
Event Description : 'Out of Frame' an Exhibition of Paintings by Prabal Roy.
‘Enigmatic Visions’: The Works of Prabal Roy - by Anirudh Chari
The enigmatic visions of Prabal Roy succeed in alternately amusing, enchanting and puzzling the viewer with their astonishing juxtapositions and metamorphoses of imagery which centre on the figure of the clown and using visual sleight of hand convert mundane pictorial facts into something unusual.
His magical ciphers employ the tension of contradiction with both precision and perception. He is evidently not in accord with the society in which he lives but is too critical, ironical and sceptical in his way of thinking to believe his art can, in any way, reform it. His art is a visual instrument using which the viewer, through shock and surprise, may transcend convention and find a sliver of the essence of mystery.
Prabal Roy has reinvented the figure of the clown. Is he the clown he paints over and over again?
It does not really matter. His clowns are caught between the tragedy of their own lives and the job of making the audience forget the tragedy of theirs. At first, this may appear somewhat pathetic and naïve but is, in fact, a tender and evocative depiction of a poignant icon symbolic of hope, sacrifice and ultimate tragedy. In looking at Roy’s works, the viewer has to understand the pointlessness of trying to solve the visual puzzles therein. Seeing the puzzles is what matters most. He does not seek to be obscure; instead creates a complex, sophisticated visual world which attempts to rescue conventional vision from its obscurity. The tension between the fantastic – which is whimsical, capricious, extravagant, illusory and unsystematic – and the imaginative, which observes things and distorts through comparisons and combinations, is an intriguing one.
Roy’s great strength lies in his ability to conjure up visual poetry through an idea by invoking mystery.
There is voyeurism here together with surrealist incongruity which creates images of restrained unease and, sometimes, sexual tension. The epigrammatic force is especially strong when the artist reflects on alienation or loneliness. Often his colours are beautiful and invoke a world of the eerie and the fantastic, of displacement and uncertainty, of the mystifying and the recognizable. They depict moments where strange clowns ride bicycles and laugh their mirthless laughter. They also do away with preconceived notions of subject and style and by interspersing random images leading to a pictorial space which is arbitrary but aesthetically pleasing. The juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated ideas within dramatic settings suggests a significance and meaning which is not always easy to resolve. The enormous potential of this juxtaposition is well exploited by the artist who looks to disorient the viewer.
The sense of mystery through absurdity also implies a threat of melancholia. The long shadows and slightly elongated forms convey a frightening sense of darkness. These encounters, the synchronized presentation of the commonplace and the unexpected, of ambiguity and tension, of enchantment, mystery and peril is especially attractive. The internal complexities and contradictory meanings make these images not just visually stimulating but also fascinating subjects of analysis and exploration.
Roy belongs to a tradition in which artistic, political, religious, social and even linguistic culture is infused with a persistent hallucinatory quality. He destabilizes the sense of reality but renders it more personal and private as the instability is received and experienced by each viewer. There is a sense of the artist embracing mortality, loneliness and suffering in the midst of materiality. He understands the inner mystery of the human condition, that profound realization of the possibilities of mortal existence.
The intended effect of these works is to unsettle the viewer and the viewer in accepting the possibility of being unsettled experiences a sense of mystery which is embedded within a familiar, material reality.
Related Events : Exhibitions
"Out of Frame" an Exhibition of Paintings by Prabal Roy at Lalit Kala Akademi, Rabindra Bhavan, Copernicus Marg > 13th to 19th January 2014
Reviewed by DelhiEvents
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Sunday, January 19, 2014
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