Group Show
Emami Chisel Art
12 to 31 March

What is fundamental to art? Everybody would say “Drawing”. History of art informs us that since renaissance drawing became absolutely important in artistic practices. Look at Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo's drawings, even though there was mathematical precision in those drawings it did teach us the basics of human body and nature. It was important for the renaissance artists to emphasize on the human anatomy since they were trying to understand man in a new context. As western art progressed over the centuries the practice of drawing evolved accordingly keeping in mind what drawing could do to contribute a particular artist's temperament.

In India we were logged within the British academic art educational mode which gave rise to western academic realism where drawing became a powerful medium for expression. Interestingly we discovered that Jyotirindranath Tagore was perhaps the only Indian artist to practice anatomical drawing with a special focus on portraiture. Rabindranath Tagore, an untrained artist excavated human pain and anguish through simple pen and ink sketches basically using criss-cross lines. Nandalal Bose, Benodebehari Mukherjee, Ramkinkar Baiz, Chittoprasad, Somenath Hore used drawing as a powerful medium of creative expression. On the other hand we have a galaxy of modern artists like M.F.Husain, F.N.Souza, Jeram Patel, Bikash Bhattacharjee, Jogen Chowdhury, Rabin Mandal, etc., who could create magic through drawings.

Indeed drawing has a long history of its own. It has travelled a long way and in the process may have lost some of its primitive qualities but at the same time added new meanings to the medium. Emami Chisel Art is organizing a Drawing Exhibition of contemporary Indian Artists which will throw light on the changing perspective of drawing today.

The participating artists are Rabin Mandal, Jogen Chowdhury, Lalu Prasad Shaw, Tapas Konar, Chhatrapati Dutta, SekharRoy, Satish Gujral, Biswapati Maity, Partha Pratim Deb, K.G.Subramanian, Minal Damani,Tushar Waghela, Alex Mathew, Monali Meher, Subba Ghosh, Aditya Basak, Habibur Rahman and others.