Kishore Sahoo and Selva Senthil Kumar are two artists from the city who are expressing the emptiness that the urban man experiences in the most colourful way. The disconnection from Nature that a person on a metro might feel is visually represented on canvas, giving an insight into a bleak future, dominated by material possessions and accumulation of wealth. These thoughts and ideas are expressed through colour to give the works a satirical point of view.
In an exhibition titled Prismatic, Kishore and Selva along with Remya Kumar and Sheela Maradi will exhibit their paintings that are varied in theme and content in dealing with modern man’s alienation from his roots. The exhibition is on at the Chitra Kala Parishad, Bengaluru till November 24.
Kishore Sahoo, in his It’s a Material World series, uses bio-morphic forms and the juxtaposition of geometric elements to illustrate the desires of humans in contrast to that of nature. “All my paintings in this series have a message in them,” says Kishore. “The prominence that money has taken in all our lives says a lot about our generation and the urban human condition. In Price of Nature, I have tried to capture how we are all running after money. There is a horse in the painting that represents the ‘other side’ of such pursuit. I have tried to capture the contrast in our desires as humans, and that of the animal world. The same thing is true with my other works like Cost of Living, or From the Far Pavilion,” Kishore says. He goes on to elaborate, “I am trying to challenge the morals that teach us that with money — be it black or otherwise — anything and everything is possible. I am not trying to bring a visual polemic here, but expressing my feelings. Yes, we need money in this material world, but what about the animals, what happened to co-existence, why are we making our lives miserable and making other species suffer for it? These are the feelings I am trying to convey through my paintings.”
Selva Senthil Kumar is questioning something that is very basic to the sustenance of every species, water. Selva has devoted all his energy to reflecting on the water crisis, which he believes stems from man’s desire for excesses, and is responsible for the ravaging of the earth. He thinks that we are deceiving ourselves into believing that we are progressing with every technological advancement, but in reality, each step in that direction is indeed spiraling us downward. “Whatever I see in a metro city is there on my canvas. I have tried to show the disconnection we urbanites feel from Nature. Everything I see in the city is inspired by Nature, but where is Nature? I don’t see it anywhere. And thus my paintings — a mixture of water colour, acrylic, Indian ink and collage — are just like the urban milieu,” Selva says.
