New voices that resonate with flair and potential

In recent years, the astronomical prices fetched by leading contemporary Indian artists at international art auctions have put their work out of the reach of most collectors. The ripple effect on prices of other popular Indian artists has made new collectors and art lovers with limited budgets wary of the Indian art market. But there is now a new generation of artists in India who have enormous talent and potential and need support from art lovers to realise that potential.

Dubai's 1x1 Art Gallery has organised a series of exhibitions to showcase the work of these emerging Indian artists.

The aim of this initiative is to introduce art lovers in the UAE to a refreshing young voice of contemporary Indian art and to offer collectors a mix of high-quality decorative and cutting-edge art at reasonable prices.

The second show in the series features the works of Subhakar Tadi, Balaji Ponna, Chinmoy Pramanick, Dilip Chobisa, Sharmi Chowdhury and Sandeep Daptari.

The four artists have very different and distinctive styles.

Chobisa combines elements of sculpture, painting and architecture to create his unique series of three-dimensional "paintings in a box", titled Silent Celebration.

Using folded paper, graphite and glue, the artist creates the illusion of a room inside glass-fronted wooden boxes.

With his clever play of light and shadow in the grey, white and black artworks, Chobisa draws viewers into the surreal spaces he creates, inviting them to look out of the windows, enticing them to explore the hidden areas below the gaping holes in the floors and focusing their attention on ordinary objects such as stones precariously balanced on window sills.

But all you see beyond the windows is just another wall and the openings in the floor lead nowhere. These mysterious and deceptive spaces have been designed not to look outside but to look inwards.

"This is a private world I have created for myself. I have blocked the windows and concealed the basements because I want to keep my thoughts and concerns to myself and I do not want to see the world outside and be affected by it.

"There are no worldly objects in the rooms — just a small stone in the centre, which represents a sense of balance and centring. I have used only shades of grey, black and white because colours create noise and diversion. These artworks represent a space where I can introspect and celebrate silence. And I want to invite my viewers to enter this world and join the celebration," says Chobisa.

Tadi also likes to work with a black and white palette. The artist's obsession with black is the result of his background as a print maker. In his most striking work, a diptych titled The Painter of Black, the artist uses black as a symbol of protest.

While one part of the canvas painted with acrylic spray paint shows a painter covering buildings in black paint, the other part depicts a scene of aerial warfare with plumes of black smoke emanating from bombed aircraft.

"To me black signifies protest and I wish to black out the meaningless constructions and edifices that are erected in the name of development but are actually deterrents to progress. I also want to protest against war and the human suffering and destruction of the environment it causes," says Tadi.

In a lighter vein, the artist is also exhibiting a series of surrealistic black-and-white paintings inspired by Salvador Dali.

The paintings have been adapted from photographs and feature dark windows, black cats, graffiti on walls and portraits of Dali and his famous melted watch presenting Tadi's humorous and deliberately distorted version of reality.

While Chobisa and Tadi choose to dwell in a surreal dimension, Pramanick draws inspiration from ordinary everyday objects. The artist is essentially a sculptor but likes to explore his ideas further on canvas.

His large paintings are filled with miniature drawings of familiar objects from daily life such as hammers, screw drivers, umbrellas, shirts, suitcases, bicycles, cars, shoes, sickles, guitars and spectacles.

"I began working on this concept as a post-graduate student by creating sculptures, etchings and engravings of these objects and later continued the work on canvas. The simple idea behind this work is to acknowledge the fact that these familiar everyday objects have become an essential part of our life and we are gradually becoming attached to them and dependent on them," says Pramanick.

Ponna too draws inspiration from everyday life but his message is laced with humour. His latest work, titled Inbox, features painting in oil and soot displayed inside boxes.

The simple paintings have interesting titles — a picture of a stray dog is titled Terrorist on Indian Roads and a composition that looks like a fried egg surrounded by rows of people is titled The Moon in a Pan ... and Hungry People in the Lanes, perhaps alluding to the empty promises made by Indian politicians.

"The titles of my works are significant acts in themselves, because through them I cajole people to see my work in a specific manner. Though the humour in my work might seem overt, it operates in a more subtle and ironic manner to express the serious sub-context," says the artist.

The titles of Sandeep Daptari's paintings also capture the essence of the stories told by his beautiful paintings. His eye-catching canvas titled End of a War, expresses the madness, sadness and futility of war.

The strings take on a different connotation in another painting, where puppets dressed in colourful Indian costumes are dangling from a string. Once again the visuals and the title, We Dance to His Tune, combine to tell many stories.

Sharmi Chowdhury also tells stories about life through her tempera on silk paintings that are filled with many characters and symbols. In her painting titled The Many Fibres of Her Heart the central figure is based on a woman she knows well. The artist has used a variety of visuals such as a dress, a sewing machine and mourners around a funeral pyre to create her narrative. "This work is about representing the presence of a person in a world that is watching her all the time. The details are designed to bring out the fragility of being and the conflict of how it is presented to the world and perceived by it.

"The fibres of the woman's clothes are a metaphor for the fragility of the fibres of one's heart, one's feelings and the constant battle with oneself to keep them intact. It is an effort in which the inside and outside fibres meet to tell a person about her own being," says Chowdhury.

Jyoti Kalsi is a UAE-based art enthusiast.

The exhibition will run at 1x1 Gallery, Al Wasl Road, until June 30.