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Creative convergence
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`The River', a presentation by the Travelling Artists' Collective is on view at the Alliance Francaise
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Flow of ideas: Acrylic on canvas by Ganesh Babu
THE ALLIANCE Française, Madras, is hosting the Travelling Artists' Collective's presentation `The River', comprising painting, sculpture, photography, theatre, music and cinema. When a river flows down a mountain, it gathers various things along its course. Similarly, artists from different backgrounds have met and put together their creations for a travelling show.
Papier mache mobiles
The very idea of people from different cultures meeting and parting is the theme of the sculptures by Noelle Deffontaines that are on display on the first floor at Alliance. These are mobiles strung together with thread and suspended so as to move in the air. They are not ten different pieces of sculpture but part of a single unit. The human forms made of papier mache represent people from various parts of the world. There are Africans, whites and Indians, and like a river, which does not differentiate between people, a white woman is shown feeding a black baby. They are dressed in the typical style of the country they represent. "I draw inspiration from the river. Here people from different places merge and flow together. Art is as important to a society as water is to life," says Noelle. The figures stand, sit and lie down in natural poses, striking a chord in the viewer's heart.
Paintings and photographs
Paintings and photographs are displayed on the ground floor of the Alliance Française. Ganesh Babu's mixed media works and acrylic paintings are sourced from images gathered during his travels in India and France. The images from France are recreated with Indian ink, sepia and white pastels. They are deceptively like lithographs and have free flowing strokes. His acrylics are colourful and the themes rotate within a single frame. The figures go round in a continuous narrative and are often found upside down or sideways. Many of them have the river as the central element as for instance, the depiction of fishing boats sailing on a Kerala river or people floating lamps in the Ganges. A more recent work is an abstract landscape in which figures seem to emerge of their own volition. Though self-taught, Ganesh Babu has associated with many artists and art institutions. He and his wife Noelle live and work in India and France.
Art history
Pradeep Cheriyan's works are mainly studies of larger paintings. `Desire to Paint' are two ink and brush drawings, which have art history as the undercurrent. In fact, Pradeep's preoccupation seems to be art history. He does not believe in sticking to any one style; he delves into art history with past masters as reference points. The face of a man with prominent eyes and lips recurs in some of the paintings/drawings. One large sketch depicts a man with several Uppal birds scattered all over the surface, which, according to Pradeep, deal with man's relationship to his surroundings. He plays around with varied forms and their inter-relationships. His acrylic works, like Ganesh Babu's, are vibrant. They are abstract expressions with figures, as human forms are his forte. They appear somewhat chaotic and he says, "They record the time at which they were painted." He has had his training in Baroda and now lives and works in Chennai.
Play of light and shade
Aji Lal is a photo journalist from Kozhikode with a degree in painting and photography. His photographs concentrate on the play of light on the surface of the sea, with the shadow of a man falling on the water in contrast to the glint of light on the waves. The line of colourfully painted pots not only reminds us of water scarcity, but their shadow on the ground appears like a line of people waiting patiently for their share of the precious liquid.
Monique Frobert's photographs create a sense of movement by contrasting dry stone with water and space and with bright lights and deep shadows.
The show is on at till February 13.
LAKSHMI VENKATRAMAN
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Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Delhi
Hyderabad
Madurai
Mangalore
Tiruchirapalli
Thiruvananthapuram
Vijayawada
Visakhapatnam
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