Ethos is an annual exhibition conceived by Indigo Blue Art, as a series of aesthetic journeys through the Contemporary World of Indian Art. This year's 'Ethos VI: The Ethos of Modern Masters' features a collection of high-calibre and significant paintings by leading artists of Contemporary Indian Art. The exhibition provides a unique opportunity to view and procure works from a rare collection never before showcased in Singapore. Artists include Arpana Caur, Jayashree Chakravarty, M.F Husain, Ram Kumar, Paresh Maity, Akkitham Narayanan, B. Prabha, Sohan Qadri, S.H Raza and Paramjit Singh.
In keeping with the true spirit of modernism and modern masters, Ethos VI brings forth a wonderful mixture of figurative and abstract works. These works represent the uncompromising tenacity and experimentation embraced by a group of artists, set against the uncertain yet liberating years of India’s independence. These artists, each with their individual language and distinctive personal styles, have successfully negotiated the formative years of modern Indian art. Heavily influenced by the West, they eventually broke away from the moulds of existing art practices. The result was a synthesis of an Indian sensibility and language, responding both to international trends and national expressions.
Arpana Caur's works in series often repeat themes in diverse ways that respond to the surroundings and events of her life, from the crowded Patel Nagar of her childhood, to events such as the rape of Maya Tyagi and the widows of the Chasnala mining disaster. Other major issues that appear in her canvases include the plight of women, spirituality, time, life and death, the environment, and the violence of man on man.
Jayashree Chakaravarty’s works have a dream-like quality about them. She blends multiple layers of images with irregular contours, in a dramatic whirl of earthly colours. Her visual language is largely based on her personal memories, which she conjures up by tracing and exploring the landscape of her mind.
M. F Husain has stood at the forefront of modern Indian art since he was invited by Francis Newton Souza to join the Progressive Artists' Group in 1947. Husain acquired an incredible ability to amalgamate influences and experiences in his life to develop his own artistic expression. His narrative paintings, which he had created in a modified Cubist style, can be caustic and funny as well as serious and sombre.
After returning to India from his studies in Europe, Ram Kumar began working almost exclusively with the motif of the abstract cityscape. In the 1960s, his style shifted again, towards a natural abstract landscape. This focus on the abstract landscape, inspired by Benares, would lead the artist to pursue this singular mode of abstraction, almost exclusively, for the rest of his career.
Paresh Maity is a highly versatile artist who started out as a watercolourist, but gradually moved towards abstraction. Angular, geometrical shapes line his canvas in dark hues of reds and pitch-dark blacks. Paresh uses lines as subtle indications of his subject’s expressions, like the brooding contours of the eyes and the mysterious uplift of the lips in a faint smile.
Akkitham Narayanan’s abstract works are best known for his combination of European geometric art forms with Indian Tantrik art. The artist, who was born into a traditional Brahmin family that often conducted Vedic teachings, blends in forms of the religious elements —air, fire, water and skies in his works. His abstractions, expressed through subdued red, black and brown hues of colours. are pure geometrical mandalas, reverberating with energy.
B. Prabha is best known for documenting, through her paintings, the ―tragedy and trauma that is the life of an Indian woman‖. While she also covered a wide range of subjects, from landscapes to social issues, a significant component of Prabha’s body of work is the artist’s self-conscious attempt to immortalise the trials, travails and strengths of Indian women.
A former Buddhist monk, Sohan Qadri’s works are rooted in spirituality. He was personally interested in exploring the notion of emptiness and truth. He worked mostly in serrated papers with ink and vegetable dyes. The depth and vibrancy of his yellows, reds and blues convey the rhythmic expressions of colour energies. The pulsating vibrations created by these energies break the boundaries between the inner space of the image and the external space of the viewer.
S.H. Raza is one of the most prominent painters in the modern contemporary art scene, not only in India but all over the world. His subject, style and techniques have evolved over distinct stages, drawing influence from his move to Paris, his involvement with Abstract Expressionism in the 1950s and 1960s, and ultimately his return to a core Indian aesthetic philosophy in the 1970s. From then, Raza abandoned the expressionistic landscape for a geometric abstraction known as the 'Bindu'.
Paramjit Singh’s landscapes bear an otherworldly quality, most distinctly due to the complete nonexistence of humans, animals or life forms from his works. Paramjit, who has long been interested in the mysteries of nature and of the universe, evokes in his works an aura of transcendental silence, amidst a trancelike dissonance. For him, the phenomenal world conceals more than what is immediately perceived.
