Art Attack

Across the square: Photograph at Attilio Tripodi.

Temporary solitudes

We are never alone. Even when this condition appears unmistakably clear! A very different kind of exhibition of photographs, titled Temporary Solitudes, by Italian artist Attilio Tripodi is currently on at India International Centre.

The exhibition, literally a meditation on solitude, is a series of frames that capture each lonesome ownsome moment in a poignant and telling manner. Different landscapes populated by a solitary figure, yet the images do not convey a sense of loneliness, rather a oneness with the world and topography around. We share life with those around us, through our thoughts, actions, emotions, because human nature drives us to be sociable, but above all, because of a higher spiritual law, we are all connected to each other, we are one.

Sitting: Photograph by Attilio Tripodi.

Our earthly journey invites us in every moment to join the evolutionary path of self awareness: it is an inner journey that can begin at any time and in any place, with a vision, a word, a sound that wakes us up from slumber. Invisible energies are activated for this to happen, but it’s up to us to create the openness required. It is in meditative solitude that we create the conditions for this awakening to occur and turn into a concrete chance. And this is what the artist aims to encourage us to do!

“By meditating on these possible ‘miracles’ of the everyday life, I took these photographs ­ looking for a deep connection with each of the unsuspecting subjects of this collection, while consciously accompanied by my own temporary solitude,” says Tripodi.

Worth a dekho!

The exhibition, Temporary Solitudes is currently on at the Art Gallery, Kamaladevi Complex, IIC till July 16, 11am-7pm.

In the Landscape, natural dyes on khadi fabric by Taniya Vaidya.

Celebrating the Landscape

Check out Celebrating the Landscape, an exhibition of paintings in natural dyes by Taniya Vaidya at the India International Centre Annexe.

A single protagonist, presumably female, takes centrestage in Vaidya’s canvas. The figure is a romantic, an idealist, a revolutionary or just someone revelling in the beauty of nature. Like Meerabai, someone who’s on a quest spiritual and intellectual, at one with the environment.

In the work she has created for this show Vaidya is inspired by the idealism of India’s struggle for independence from the British. The romantic-idealist figure of Gurudev RabindranathTagore is a strong inspiration along with the movies of Bimal Roy and based on that era. The rebel heroine of Bimal Roy’s movies and the poetic landscape depicted is the inspiration of many of these paintings. Vaidya has created these art pieces using indigo – the prize dye after which India is supposedly named, prompting the Europeans to head to India and ultimately colonise it. But ironically, it was Gandhiji’s Champaran Satyagraha, led by the Neel workers that started the freedom struggle and ultimately brought independence.

Vaidya creates her landscape using ancient methods in natural dyes to create a contemporary and personal idiom in the ancient textile techniques of Kalamkari and Ajrakh, to bring spontaneity and directness to her paintings.

The exhibition opens on July 13 and is on till July 19, 2016, at the India International Centre Annexe.