The New Vanguard

‘The New Vanguard: A collection of Contemporary Indian Art’ offers a glimpse of the artists and artworks that capture India’s diverse contemporary art practices, drawing on the wide-range of idioms and interpretations that help shape this genre.

Each work in this exhibition offers a unique perspective of the evolving trends in contemporary Indian art, riveting in both scale and narrative. Some of the works on display capture the artist’s ongoing examination of identity and social history; some reorganise nostalgia within the struggles of everyday life, highlighting the dramatic contrasts that exist in the artist’s eye. There is a riot of emotions that envelopes the viewer, drenched in stark colours and intriguing forms. The artist’s personal reaction to an evolving world plays out across various stages: sometimes passive and rueful, and sometimes cohabitating with fluidity.

V Salaskar’s figurative art touches upon socio-political influences, capturing the inherent conflict between traditions and modern life. Salaskar is an alumnus of the Vidyapeeth College of Fine Arts, Pune. Drawing on similar themes is R Magesh. A graduate of the Government College of Fine Arts, Chennai, Magesh borrows his imageries from socio-political issues and the rapid advent of globalization. However, it is the disturbing aspects of inhumane progress and suffocation within the system that inspire Santiniketan alumni Mantu Das to speak out through his art.

Durga Prasad Bandi’s stark, monochromatic canvases bring together both the artist’s personal thoughts and the expressions of the social milieu. Bandi is an alumnus of the MS University, Vadodara. For Bikash Karmakar, an artist is the equivalent of a storyteller. Santiniketan alumni Karmakar believes in strongly connected forms that reach out and build bridges. Stories inspire Apu Dasgupta too, but his canvases focus on the turbulence engulfing the young generation today. Dasgupta is a graduate from Santiniketan.

A Fulbright scholar and Santiniketan alumni, Satadru Sovan Banduri uses his canvas space as a gateway and tool to see a psychedelic world. Vivid colours cohabitate with forms and idioms in Tuhin Ghose’s expressions also, liberating in their fluidity. Ghose is a Santiniketan alumnus. Perpetual seeker and CN College of Fine Arts graduate Jignesh Panchal uses his canvas to map a search for his identity mired amid the various social roles he plays. And it is this very, rich, multi-textured fabric of modern life, with both its mundane reality and inherent magic that is depicted by Santiniketan alumni Nakul Mondal.

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