Monday, February 16, 2009

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Saturday, February 14, 2009

ICONIC SHRINES chintan upadhyay


PRESS RELEASE

Gallery Soulflower, Bangkok presents ICONIC SHRINE, new paintings and sculptures by CHINTAN UPADHYAY.


opening by LAXMAN SHRESTHA, eminent artist
16th feb 09 at 5:oopm

works on display 16th and 17th feb, 5 pm to 8 pm

address:
MADHYAVARTI AND SUKRITI
Jawahar Kala Kendra
Jawahar Lal Nehru Marg,
Jaipur,
India

ARTIST PROFILE:
Chintan Upadhyay’s paintings and 3D works have a streamlined perfection that signifies mechanical reproduction. Colors can be garish and while his artworks often appear playful they nevertheless have disturbing undercurrents. The artist focuses on particular motifs, most recently the image of babies, and includes fragmented references to local Indian culture. The affect is typically one of a brash visual overload, like advertising imagery that makes explicit an otherwise implicit vulgarity.

Upadhyay is concerned with the nature of the designed: contemporary technologies of replication. The image of the baby or infant is an appropriate symbol. It can represent innocence and is understood as typifying the natural. In Upadhyay’s terms, both these states have become obsolete in our age of globalized values and because of a pervasive sense of the simulacral. In a word, we are divorced from the realm of the real or authentic. Upadhyay renders aspects of Rajasthani miniature paintings as tattoos on some of the figures he paints to suggest history and identity are markers that are consciously worn. That is, cultural and social understandings are claimed as not emerging inevitably or naturally.

Upadhyay’s art, however, is not one of a crisis of contemporary values. And he is certainly not concerned with nostalgia for more authentic times. Rather, and like much of the best of international contemporary art, his artworks serve a critical prompt about the world we live in.

EVENT:
On 16 and 17 February artist Chintan Upadhyay will have a preview of his works in Jaipur at Jawahar Kala Kendra. The works will be part of a traveling exhibition titled Roundabout featuring over a hundred international artists and will travel to New Zealand, Australia, Israel among others. The main exhibition opens in September 2010 and will travel for at least two years. The exhibition is a metaphor for hope and rebirth and works on the idea that what goes around comes around. It brings together artists from all over the world, who have never exhibited together in the same space and hopes to start a dialogue amongst them through their work.

Chintan is one of the Indian artists who will be part of this exhibition, which also features artists like Julian Opie, Kevin Francis Gray, Wang Qingsong, Shane Cotton, etc. Roundabout will be hosted in some of the major museums around the world and Chintan will participate with six large sculptures each 5 x 5 x 5 feet and five paintings each 6 x 6.5 feet for this exhibition.

As an artist Chintan has constantly challenged the established norms having developed his own language to communicate with his audience. These works are a further exploration of this language. The works are about a merging of tradition and modernity, having influences of Shekhawati wall paintings along modern day images. The preview opens on 16 February and will be inaugurated by eminent artist Laxman Shrestha. It is in collaboration with Gallery Soulflower, Bangkok and the organizers of Roundabout.

ABOUT GALLERY SOULFLOWER

Gallery Soulflower is the first gallery in Thailand specializing in contemporary art from the subcontinent of India. The main mission for the gallery is to push the potential of contemporary art and capture the current directions of the rapidly developing visual culture, thereby delivering a direct experience of the art of our time.

There are no artistic boundaries as to the kind of art works the gallery intends to show, for each art creation has its own merits. Works on display here can range from painting, sculpture, photography, installations, to new media and conceptual-based art.


ข่าวประชาสัมพันธ์

Gallery Soulflower, Bangkok
นำเสนอ
ผลงานจิตกรรมและปฏิมากรรมชิ้นใหม่
“ICONIC SHRINE” by CHINTAN UPADHYAY.

ประธานเปิดโดย แลกซ์แมน เชสตร้า ศิลปินผู้เรื่องชื่อ
วันที่ 16 กุมภาพันธ์ 2552 เวลา 17.00 น.

เปิดแสดงผลงานสด วันที่ 16 และ 17 กุมภาพันธ์ 2552
เวลา 17.00-20.00 น.

สนใจร่วมชมงานได้ที่
คุณ มาดยาวาตรี และ สุกริต
อาคารจาวาฮา การา เคนดร้า
ถนน จาวาฮา ลอ เนเฮรู มารค ์
เมือง จาปรู ประเทศ อินเดีย