A visual treat

Guys, if you have not yet visited the Lalit Kala Academy, do so now. Rabindra Bhawan is playing host to as many as three excellent shows, the Terracota to Ceramics by Bhuvnesh Prasad, PalinGenesis by Manhar Kapadia and the Wide Ranging Art of Amrut Patel. Tomorrow, Dec 14, is the last day of the show, so hurry up.

In the foyer is Terracota to Ceramics. Prasad is credited with creating a 10X 4 ft wide pot at Craft Museum, Pragati Maidan in 2002 for which he also got the National Award that year. At the current exhibition, he has showcased nine different types of work done through terracotta clay. In these works, Prasad has used three kinds of shades, the white glaze, the terracotta shades and the transparent glaze, but no colour glazes. The pots are light-weight and elegant, apparently because of his adept changing in clay content. “There is great potential for terracotta cookware. At my ancestral place in Rajasthan, people still use terracotta cookware,” he says.

PalinGenesis is Kapadia’s first solo show in Delhi. Through his works he has brought to life Gandhi in his various stages of life i.e. barrister, freedom fighter or the Mahatma. “Gandhiji influenced not only his generation, many future generations too and continues to do so. He will be relevant in the all the times to come. Whatever little I have read about him has impacted me greatly, says Kapadia. Kapadia has in a way devoted his life to Gandhi, and, for over a decade now he has been painting only Gandhi’s portraits.

The Wideranging Art by Amrut Patel soothes the eyes and mind equally. This show is the free-flowing thoughts of heart that have not been restricted by the mind as is the case with words. For five years Patel did only traditional paintings, including the miniature, and it seems that the discipline he gained while doing miniature paintings has served him well. For, his works, though abstract, have well defined shapes and sizes, and each of the works seems to be speaking to the viewer.  But exactly when does his deftly moving brush assume a form and turn a canvas into a piece de art? He has no clue. “But I get to know. That’s intuitive, the connection between my soul and the soul of the art work I am doing,” he says.