CREATURE COMFORT an exhibition of Drawings by MALAVIKA P. C.

Malavika.P.C is an Illustrator of Children’s' Books, Print Designer, Theatre Actor and a Good Cook. She is also a lyricist of exactly 4 songs; a gypsy, ironically waiting to find her one acre of land so she can settle down to farm. She dreams to live in her farm, with her 2 goats, 1 dog, 2 cows, 4 cats and 1 monkey, quite content growing her herbs, potatoes and cattle feed. She also dreams of the charming Letterpress Station and art studio that will be concealed several feet beneath the quaint farmlands; for by day she is a Farmer and by night, an artist who brews the creatures on paper. She studied to be an industrial ceramist and won medals at her College; that officially qualified her to make state-of-the-art wash basins and colorful potties. She soon realized that wasn't her calling. The call that came from reams of paper and liters of ink and the lines born of a nib was stronger.

Creature Comfort is her first solo exhibition of 22 ink drawings.

EXPRESSIONS IN ABSTRACTION by Mini Arora

Painting for me is a means of creating, of experimenting and exploring different media to achieve fascinating results.
Since I first delved into the world of art over twenty years ago with a watercolour class in the US, I have evolved as an artist. I have drawn on the experiences of many wonderful artists/teachers through the years, who have helped me to gain skills and techniques. I use those valuable lessons to to create whatever my mind has in store for me. Art to me is an excitement, a restlessness and a need to keep meeting new challenges.
Lately I have been dividing my time between England, India and the U.S. – all countries where I have lived at some point or another in my life. My art has been influenced by this path that I have followed, making it a blend of the East and the West, a reflection of the journey of my existence both physical and spiritual. There is a search in all of us and my work helps me to identify mine.
Texture is something that appeals to me; in many of my acrylic and oil works you will notice the profusion of layers to give a rich multiplicity. I want the viewer to peer into my painting to see what lies beneath. My most recent works involve the palette knife which enables me to apply thick and generous amounts of paint. I hope you enjoy seeing the interplay between colours and strokes.
Currently I am pursuing a degree in art from the Open College of the Arts in the UK and working on my 3rd course which consists of art history. I am enjoying learning about the works of abstract expressionists, Frank Auerbach, Richard Diebenkorn, John Walker and Gerhard Richter.

CITY CIRCLE an Installation by PRADEEP THALAWATTA , SL

Pradeep Thalawatte’s artistic investigations incorporate highly urban situations: industrial materials, mass-production, pop/celebrity icons and personal episodes of his life. His works deal with absorption with urban allure, commenting on consumer anxieties and feelings of isolation and loneliness in the big city.

“The items chosen for the background in his works are mass-produced and mass used items and the images 

that are represented are individuals with whom I tend to associate very closely. What is expressed within the 

background and foreground represents relationships that cannot be ignored or avoided. They are decided based 

on personal selections, individual tastes, continued usage, authenticity and conveniences.”

He is part of Theertha Collective and has been awarded the Commonwealth fellowship to work at 

1.Shanthiroad Studio.

RE-LOOK : The Making of a Modern Indian Artist-Craftsman: Devi Prasad

a lecture by
Naman Ahuja
Art Historian, JNU, New Delhi.

The Making of a Modern Indian Artist-Craftsman: Devi Prasad

This lecture is a biographical and critical insight into the work of India’s pioneering artist-potter, educationist and pacifist, Devi Prasad (1921 – 2011). The gentle sensibilities of his oeuvre belie the fact that they are actually based on a powerful, near-revolutionary mandate that affected not just the history of design in India, but the very basis and nature of India’s policies on education. Positing an aesthetic basis for India’s Freedom struggle, the talk leads us to the impact of the Arts and Crafts Movement on Gandhi, Tagore and Coomaraswamy, each of whom influenced Devi Prasad. His story, then, exemplifies how an inheritance of the Arts and Crafts Movement shaped the nature of Modernism in India.

Naman P. Ahuja is Associate Professor of Ancient Indian Art and Architecture at JNU, New Delhi, where his research and graduate teaching focus on Indian iconography, sculpture, temple architecture and Sultanate period painting. He has recently completed a Nehru Fellowship, under the auspices of which he authored The Making of the Modern Indian Craftsman: Devi Prasad (Routledge, 2011). He has held Fellowships, Visiting Professorships and Curatorial charges at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, SOAS, the British Museum and the Kusnthistorisches Institut in Florence. He has curated several exhibitions in India and abroad on themes ranging from Ancient to Modern Art. Some of his publications include: Divine Presence, The Arts of India and the Himalayas (Five continents editions, Milan, 2003) which was translated into Catalan and Spanish, “Changing Gods, Enduring Rituals: Observations on Early Indian Religion as seen through Terracotta Imagery c. 200 BC – AD 200” in South Asian Archaeology, Paris, 2001, and, Ramkinkar Through the Eyes of Devi Prasad (Delhi, 2007).