PRESS RELEASE*
Winter Moderns
Smriti Dixit, Sajal Sarkar, Akbar Padamsee, Krishna Reddy, Sohan Qadri
Aicon Gallery Palo Alto
December 7, 2007 - February 2, 2008
Opening reception, December 7, 6 - 9pm
Aicon Gallery – Palo Alto is delighted to present Winter Moderns which exhibits a rare cluster of exceptional work by Smriti Dixit, Sajal Sarkar, Akbar Padamsee, Krishna Reddy and Sohan Qadri.
Smriti Dixit (1971 - ) creates abstract mixed media artworks which refer to the traditional art of sewing. A craft long undertaken by many women in India and around the world, Dixit modernizes and individualizes it. Despite her geometric concoctions, they retain a strong organic quality and human element. The process of production is in full view in the form of tearing, re-stitching, tangling and draping fabric.
Sajal Sarkar (1963 - ) graduated in painting from the Government College of Art and Craft, Kolkata in1989 and subsequently worked at the Lalit Kala Academy for four years. His post diploma in Graphics in Baroda in 1993 has been most significant. He broadened his range of references to include photographs, magazines and other examples of contemporary visual culture – a very different approach from the Kolkata School. Sarkal's main subject is the male nude. While classically inspired he tweaks the form for his own conveniences. For example he uses computer generated images which he then manually recreates on the canvas. The final result is not a photo-realistic rendition but a more surreal, magic realism. It is a mediated take on reality, ultimately yielding to the hand over mechanical devices.
Akbar Padamsee (1928 - ) left for Paris in 1951 and lived and worked there until his return to his hometown, Mumbai, in 1967. He was associated with the Progressive Artists Group. Padamsee's scope – from the figure to non-figuration and then back – makes his art difficult to categorize. However, amid his explorations into form and space, the figure has always been paramount. His assemblage of strokes are influenced by the Chinese method of 'ku fu', lending an agile grace to his art.
Krishna Reddy (1925 - ) is a master in intaglio whose style has distinguished him as a prominent printmaker. He studied at Vishwa-Bharati University, Santiniketan (1947 – 1950) and headed the Art Department at Kalakshetra, Chennai. He went on to study art at the Slade School of Fine Arts, University of London, from 1951-2. In later years, he was the Associate Director of studio Atelier 17, where he developed his technique. His prints, often abstract or semi-abstract rarely have a human connection or comment on the modern world. Instead his intricate textures and complex colors which he introduces to the medium contemplate on the infinite mysteries of nature.
"If you can't stop reacting intellectually, you build other images-then, it's not this image, you're away from here, you concoct an image which is a superimposition. To be directly with it, that process of interpretation has to be stopped." Sohan Qadri's (1932 - ) spiritual path, manifest through Tantric philosophy spills over into this art. His monochrome structures resonate as color energies. Expressionistic indeed, his main inspiration however is not aggression but tranquility. Qadri has had formal art training (he received his MFA in 1960 from Government College of Art in Simla) but quickly veered away from academia. Despite clear Western influences, i.e. Mark Rothko or Clyfford Still, his oeuvre is wholly sourced by Eastern thinking.
For more information and visuals, please contact
paloalto@aicongallery.com or 650 321 4900