Festive art

Thus retail commerce, wholesale production and conventional representation, all tend to lower aesthetic standards and, as a result, the price. Art production is too qualitatively diverse and small in number to be affected by slumps and booms. So what we call slumps and booms in art actually reflect the health of the art market at any time. From this one can say that at present, it is suffering from the failure of both artists and galleries to understand this.

Still, interesting young artists are emerging all the time. Recently, the Gallery Alternatives at DLF exhibited the the work of a young Mauritian student of the College of Art at Delhi, Taya Buctowar. Although she seems to be obsessively influenced by Pharaonic Egypt, her works such as the Nile, painted on burnt papyrus and using negative space brilliantly and an etching that shows how the Indian temple-farm evolved out of the Pyramids indicate she is an artist to look out for.

In the same way, Balu Sadelge from Karnataka (and one of V G Andani’s many successful students) stood head and shoulders above the others at an exhibition sponsored by Gallery Mairage at the City Golf Resort off the Jaipur road near Gurgaon. He is an upcoming landscape artist and ranks with Rahul Arya and his younger brother, Inder. Where Rahul is deeply influenced by Rembrandt’s sombre tones and Inder by the colours of Titian, Sedalge carries the feel of nineteenth century romantic landscape painters. And all three together convince one that Indian landscape painting has a sound future. So it would be better to step back from stock-in-trade gods for gifts at Diwali and take a look at the works of good young artists instead.

-Suneet Chopra