Saturday 29 March 2014

Taking Green Art

Today is Earth day. Taking Green Art was the name of a coffee morning organised by the Art Couture gallery in association with UAE Green Festival today. It is the same venue that is showing my 'Secret Garden' series inspired from medicinal plants. The gallery is showing Green Art all this month... until April 15.

In an opportunity to speak about 'green' in art... I wanted to address how we can - Stay inspired in art, Create original art and Market it. It was wonderful to have artists, both grown ups and children listen to you with keen attention. Must mention the coffee and the venue was great too!

For those who missed the session, here is a quick recap. Jeff Scofeild, Director of Dubai International Art Centre (DIAC) opened the talk introducing futuristic art landscape projects across the UAE. His slide show also presented some of the amazing green art projects that were a part of the various art shows in the country recently. "Possibilities are unlimited and this is just the tip of the green-art scene in the region," he summed up the elaborate presentation.

Jeff's presentation was academic and beautifully put together

After Jeff, I got my chance. In the UAE lot of us trap ourselves in its usual trappings and then complain about the lack of 'nature' in our lives. Actually this is not just in the UAE, the culprit is the comfortable lifestyle that we have adapted ourselves into. Every time we sit in front of the TV or walk into a mall for shopping... we have stolen ourselves from an opportunity to connect with our true surrounding. True or no?

Does not matter if we are living in an all-air-conditioned world, we are not without the nature, its changing weather and its daily wonders. When we run away from Dubai to an ideal vacation in the lap of nature... what do we actually do?  We just consciously connect and feel so wonderful. I love lying down in the grass and looking up at the branches... doesn't matter if its the prairies or Safa Park. The point is we must make efforts to connect with our immediate 'real' surrounding and draw inspiration from it... so much so that you fall in love with it. 'It' here means nature. Then you start worrying/protecting it too... and then probably consciously reduce the trash produced every day.

Or re use... or reinvent things.

Like the other day. I was left with some extra cake batter and no idea container to bake a small batch. And then I spotted an empty ghee tin can. And... Voila! [I know that is a mega muffin!]


Reusable Muffin Mold from Used Ghee Tin Can
1. Cut out the base using tin can opener 
2. Pour batter into the can
3. Bake
4. Remove the lid and push the muffin out

Artist Ashvin, another Green Art exhibition participant talked about upcycling. His unique bookends, made from used bottles and shoe boxes, explained it all.

Dr Ashvin explains upcycling with examples

Maja Poljock, the Serbian artist who expressed her deep connection with nature dedicates a whole series on burdock, a wild flower found in her country. "I used to think am this flower. I was defensive and quite like in the state in which my country was. But with traveling wide and far I have opened up... just like the burdock," says Maja.

EJ from UAE Green Festival speaks of how they want to look at future green art



Thank you Art Couture and the UAE for this green opportunity to share my understanding of greenness 

Artist Maja speaks on how Serbian nature and politics have influenced her art

Artist Beena sharing one of her recycled artworks in progress... it will soon be exhibited at DIAC.
And the day almost winds up with eco-art efforts at the art class today where my students express their art from waste in the studio. Diya produces an abstract work with 'red' for electricity and 'green & blue' for life... she calls her work 'Shades of Earth'... while Claire makes a collage inspired by nature's bounty in Australia and calls it 'My Water Fall'.



Are we going to switch off lights from 8.30pm to 9.30pm today... and celebrate Earth Hour?

Am off to a friend's place... hopefully we will have a candlelight coffee :)

Tuesday 18 March 2014

What not to miss at Art Dubai

I could easily make this blog very interesting by talking about laughable art. But then I will not do so. I feel responsible to behave appropriately to suit both the fraternities - that of the artist's as well as journalist's. And this makes my life tough on some days. Especially today after having been there and done all that we do at Art Dubai. The press preview of Art Dubai 2014 had me open my eyes on few more interesting stuff.. more metaphorically than literally what was there on display.

Here is what I suggest you don't miss. And I have my favourites. Please pardon me for just recommending a few.

Don't miss MF Husain on display at the Contemporary Gallery... this one is inside the Mina A'Salam hotel.


The winning artists announced by The Abraaj Group Art Prize are Abbas Akhavan (Iran), Anup Mathew Thomas (India), Basim Magdy (Egypt), Bouchra Khalili (Morocco) and Kamrooz Aram (Iran). I particularly loved the delicate sculptures made by Abbas Akhavan. They are cast in bronze and represent authentic fauna from around Iraq's Tigris and Euphrates region... as they were before the colonial advent... during which ships brought other plants from across continents.


Also spend a few minutes at the browsing centre here to read about the selected entries. These are good collaborative artist+writer works worth your time. 


If you have more time to while away... grab the headphones and listen to the run up programmes to the event. I watched the one on pearl diving... that an art team at a Bahraini gallery was talking about and it was interesting to note that diving has significantly contributed to the music in the region too.

This is a screen grab of that talk... [I like the ganesha on his tee].


Inside Gallery 1 checkout the sugar sculptures in a glass cage made by Lebanese artist Pascal Hachem at the Selma Ferani Gallery stand. She surely seems to be really inspired by things in one's kitchen. I liked the roll pins that read 'Each one of us is a future dictator'. [The roll pins with dictatorial words reminded me of my mother swirling one in the air on certain war-like days in the past. Ahem!]



Found this cassette stack interesting. It is made by Maha Malluh [all Indians reading this name please do not read it the way you are reading... the artist is not a 'maha mallu']. Maha is a Saudi Arabian artist. This is also at the same gallery mentioned above.


Now this one took my breath away. Can you believe it is hand painted acrylic work?



This work is by Mehrad Mohebali and is titled Nearly Infinity. Mehrad is an Iranian artist and painter who explores the conflicts of traditional versus modern, young versus old and West versus East.

Another one which made me stare for good 10 minutes is this one by American artist Kehinde Wiley at the Galerie Daniel Templon stand. It is a huge bright oil on canvas work you will spot easily. The artist makes naturalistic paintings of people with black and brown skin in heroic poses.


And this one [far below] can be yours if you have $800,000 to spare. Korean artist Youngjin Jo's oil will soon make it to auction houses, my heart says. These two guys wearing similar tees just caught my eye because they were so uniform! They were manning the 313 Art Project Seol stand where Jo's work is displayed.



If you can, say hi to Ruben Sanchez, the Spanish artist in residency at Tashkeel, who is ever so warm and easy to chat with. His street art installations are there at Bastakiya and Jumeirah. He makes wonderful art in each city... using the stuff that the city throws away. Here is Ruben and a sneak peak to his works on display at the Tashkeel stand.



Of all the sculptures on display, I liked these sleepy men... the most. It is made by Indian artist Jitish Kalat using dental plaster and wood... on display at the Galerie Daniel Templon gallery from Paris. The title of the work happens to be Syzygy. In astronomy, a syzygy is a straight-line configuration of three celestial bodies in a gravitational system. The word is often used in reference to the Sun, Earth and either the Moon or a planet, where the latter is in conjunction or opposition... [Dear Google, I don't think the sculpture means that but thank you anyway.]




At the Cartier gallery... as always they have breathtaking diamonds and precious stones cast in metals that sing a song that only your eyes can hear [yes your eyes can hear... you read that right!]. This time they have a display theme of white versus colour... traditional versus modern... to display the various collections in their original inspirational landscapes. Stunning ornaments were displayed in miniature Oriental pagodas, Indian domes, African huts... also modern skyscrapers of Dubai. I particularly liked the tutti-fruity collection inspired by colours from India, that Jacques Catrier (son of the Alfred Cartier, the founder of the luxury jewelry chain) brought to the West [who were until then not aware that so many colours together can also be fashionable]. I love that dragon circling a bright orange onyx stone... it is the pendant of a 18k diamond necklace with red rubys. And that sleeping dragon there is actually a pen... with a golden nib.





Cartier chose to acquire and display Congolese artist Kimbembele-Ihunga's sculptures/landscape in paper, cardboard, polystyrene, plastic and other recycle materials... a complete contrast to the luxury jewelry on display. The artist's colourful landscape is titled as 'Tribute to My Mother'. He dreams of skyscrapers and a planned modern city with complete amenities for his mother's poor village in Congo. Perhaps it was the artist's cheerful display of hope and dream... despite the current affairs in that part of the world, that inspired Cartier team to choose him.

Here is Kimbembele-Ihunga's work at Art Dubai:


On that note... I conclude my first impressions of this much believed event to a happy ending!

PS: Art Dubai is open to public from 19-22 March... and I shall go back again... and may have more to share. Btw I have not had a chance to look at the press kit. I am so glad my phone works so hard for me clicking pics... to help me remember the who and the what.

Friday 14 March 2014

Jiva - The Secret Garden

The missing Malaysian jet in the news these days just reminds us how large our mother earth is and how deep her belly of secrets may be. While we try to smarten ourselves with the newest app and keep up with the pace of lessening the divide through latest innovation... there is a part of us that crave for some jungle and its organic calm. The nature connection within us keeps calling. No?

Did you know that Ginger can cure insomnia... or that Easter Lily has the best answer for anxiety? I figured these out only recently.

Exploring wellness from nature through art, I have readied this series that represent medicinal plants in their full bloom. Jiva means 'life' in Sanskrit. I call it a 'secret' garden because we know very little of this huge treasure... and also most of the herbs are extracted from leaves, roots or trunk... not really their flowers. Because flowers draw everyone's attention, I thought it is a good idea to make these beautiful flowers and get the focus down to where it is required.

Medium
Coffee and oil colours on paper

Technique
Knife and bare hands

Innovation
Have used dry and wet mixtures of coffee & water with oil colours. Their respective differences/characters have given this unique result.

Concept
Exploring wellness from nature through this Secret Garden. The series has 12 flowers representing each medicinal plant - with common names like ginger to easter lily.

Cup of Gold Vine

Easter Lily

Oleander

Chinese Honey Suckle

Sweet Pea

Blue Wild Indigo

Ginger

Desert Pea

Yellow Monkey Flower

Handsome Flat Pea

Crown of Thorns
Roscoea 


My reason
Centuries back a clan of learned men crossed rivers and mountains to the plains to occupy pristine hilly lands of south India... and along with them they brought seeds to well being for their future generations. I am talking about my ancestors. My grand father was a planter, who despite being a lawyer by profession lived very close to nature. It must be because of him that I grew fond of herbs and their flowers. My childhood memories are not without those vast forests and its blooming shrubs. The estate was a curious wild place for a long long time... until I grew up old enough to know it was an Ayurvedia garden maintained that way. Each plant there had more than just its colourful flowers that we children plucked to play with.

From the garden there... ginger, lemon, pepper and cinnamon made it to grandma's kitchen too. And there were plenty of others that the local medic would parcel and take behind his little bike.

I learnt that for serious health conditions such as hepatitis b to long-term illnesses such depression and insomnia there is complete cure in herbal medicines. Experts say oncology and aids researchers may eventually find their best medicines in the wild. It is a secret garden out there that we must explore for our own good. Tuning to mother nature is just one of those things that make me nostalgic and happy at the same time. Mixing memories with coffee is just as delightful!

Have I ever mentioned that I was keen on being a doctor and wrote the entrance exam for a medical seat in my country? I got through the state's ayurveda college quota, because my ranks were not good enough for an MBBS seat. My elitist grandfather dismissed me from spending my life around smelly oils and massages, and suggested I could drop an year to repeat attempt as that was ok... as I was an year junior to my classmates for having joined school in a hurry. He also reminded that the next attempt should get me the best seat and that he would not be happy if I were to look into people's mouths for a living. In other words he dismissed BDS (dental) seats. Well, I dismissed his whole idea of dropping an year and learning medicine for 5 years or more?! Instead I chose to explore more of nature, language... self discovery and expression.

Contemporary connection
Today we may still have a long way to go before we accept that there is no one system of healthcare supreme to the other. There are millions who need relief. Fortunately though, humans have a fascinating ability to turn a tough situation on its head with ingenuity and there is a growing realization for the wisdom of past. This is kept alive in traditional systems of medicine that provide crucial answers. Placing trust in age-old herbal remedies is the most non-invasive and economical way to good health and life... me thinks!

The world of modern medicine finds itself in a complex situation. On the one hand, advances in genetics, biotechnology, and stem cells are opening new frontiers in medical research. On the other, antibiotics, the most frequently prescribed medicines in modern medicine, are facing tough new territories that manifest research results to find dangerous/complex chemical compositions.

Ancient health care focused on preventive care. Our modern lifestyles are guided by the corporate policies that often have its support systems depending on modern medicine. Doctors recommending traditional herbal products are those few who are wise enough/rather magnanimous enough to believe and allow maintenance of general health and well-being over their professional pressures. Getting doctors to acknowledge the benefits of traditional medicine is still a uphill task. Especially when heavy grants fund research and development of modern medicines. They have their say. It will be controversial if I mention who pharma companies lure professional medics to play with even their ethics to prescribe/over-prescribe dosages.

My reason to turn to nature can be everybody's reason to a better life.

PS: Not a doctor but I can aid healing... thanks to energy healing passed on by masters... and of course art!