Sculpting the divine and thoughtful

A generous exhibition space amidst beautiful flora here has breathtaking installations and thoughtful sculptural pieces awaiting the visit of every art connoisseur in the capital.

The exhibition, titled "iSculpt", curated by Uma Nair, brings across magical works of ten sculptors and occupies the open space at India International Centre's Gandhi King Plaza till till December 21.

The works include Arun Pandit's "Mask Seller", Vineet Kacker's "Buddhist Pillar", Tapas Biswas' "Innocence", Puneet Kaushik's "Ensnare" and Mukesh Sharma's "Nagraj".

"The idea of this exhibition is to bring different materials together. It is about celebrating hard work. I wanted to bring to the people, the art that has mythology, history and the art that is born out of the gravity of the earth," Nair told IANS.

"The role of a curator is to make the unknown known. So, I am looking at the bottom of a pyramid. I am actually looking at the younger artists. This show is also about artists, who have been working for past 20-22 years and yet nobody knows about them," Nair said.

Noting that sculptors don't get recognition and that galleries don't want to patronize them, Nair said: "I am serving artists by bringing their works to a place that works on the concept of public art because people can walk in and see."

The exhibition is expected to adopt a generous stance that exults form, materiality, and a process alongside the history of art discourse.

According to Nair, "iSculpt is a revolution in the making of public exhibitions and public art that expresses fidelity to the idea of a 'sculpture of one's own'."

"In this case, a series of literal and metaphorical works, dedicated to material experimentation and innovation, provide a plethora of works for the history of ingenuity among sculptors to take roo"," she explained.

Sculptor Neeraj Gupta's "Divine Love" is a testimony to the warmth of human relationships and the eternal quest for a civilization to live and procreate for posterity.

Madhab Das' National Award winning work "An Inconvenient Truth" of a deer with iron, bricks and tall iron rods is a statement on the loss of habitat for the beautiful animal whose world is threatened because of large scale deforestation.

Arun Pandit's powerful bronze 'Mask Seller' will be the cynosure of all eyes. The work looks at the many faces of the human predicament.

From Kolkata the sculptor Tapas Biswas' works bring across networks of leaves and twigs created in metal. One of them focuses on the need to save girl child.

Mukesh Sharma's 'Nagraj' that was a part of the Venice Biennale, is also on display. Created out of computer boards and styrofoam packaging materials, it is a testimony to the uselessness of waste and the degree of conspicuous consumption.

Puneet Kaushik's wire spiral of a metaphoric spider talks to us at different levels about the beauty of nature the fragile ecosystem.

Vineet Kacker's 'Buddhist Pillar' is a statement of charismatic contours and the felicity of weaving spiritual fervour into the textural terrain of ceramic ware.

It has deep monastic meanderings and is at once a symbol of sheer resonance.

Atul Sinha's wooden carved work with sleek textural contours sets him apart as a sculptor of deep reverberations.

Simran Lamba's 'Shunya Krishna and Radha' is a post modernist look at the fervour and flavour of the Radha Krishna folklore that still turns heads. He has used iron works from Kolkata to create a sumptuous sculpture that is simple and lucid in its tonality and ideation.

The show is a melange of installations and sculptures that create their own rhythms.

--IANS

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