12 JULY 2022 /
ART SHOW INSPIRED BY MYTHOLOGY /
The art show titled ‘Kurma’ emerged as a follow-up to ‘Gaja’, brilliantly manifests mythology that continues to remain through colorful stories of god and goddesses.
This art exhibition of tortoise sculptures painted by 15 eminent artists all over the country helped to adopt six pairs of tortoises that include a pair of Galapagos tortoises and a pair of Aldabra tortoises that are aged over 90 to 120 years in the Nehru Zoological Park, Hyderabad.
The eminent artists who painted the three-diamentional fibre glass tortoise sculptures include Jagdish Chinthala, Bose Krishnamachari, Laxman Aelay, B. Srinivas Reddy, Subrata Das, Sachin Jaltare, Ramesh Gorjala, Vinita Dasgupta, Ganapati Hegde, Siddharth Shingade, Meenakshi Jha Banerjee, Bandana Kumari, Arpitha Reddy, Bhushaiah and B. Nagesh Goud.
“Acts of religious devotion towards nature are deep-rooted in my upbringing. Nature and all beings seem like the manifestation of the divine! Emerging through a creative process of the pictorial narrative of the celestial universe into a divine incarnation has always mesmerized me. My quest for creative narration led me into curating “Gaja”, my first curatorial endeavor”
Earlier in 2020, Nagesh Goud curated the exhibition Gaja, showcased 25 painted sculptures of elephants and contributed the sale proceeds for the upkeep of elephant Sita at the Nehru Zoological Park.
“During the time of “Gaja”, visiting the Nehru Zoological park opened up a window to extrapolate my thoughts on another massive yet gentle creature, the Tortoise. Getting back to our roots – Kurma, the second Avatar of Lord Vishnu, holds significance in our cultural practices. I began to undergo an artistic experience by the aura of divinity around these amphibious beings. And these thoughts reinforced my fascination and the respect I had, towards these gentle giants…
Divine experiences are linked to Tortoises across cultures around the world. However, in reality the Tortoises risk an inevitable extinction, unless we act in unanimity. This very thought was the beginning of my show “Kurma” that showcases the work of the artists with passion towards conserving nature”.
In the exhibition all the eminent artists depicted myriad mythological stories perceived in their own signature style on the life-like models of ‘kurma’, the second avatar of Lord Vishnu who takes birth time and again to quell the forces of evil that create havoc in the universe.
The group show titled Kurma, the second avatar was exhibited at Bangalore and Hyderabad during the pandemic days and now B. Nagesh Goud, the eminent artist and Curator is planning to take the show to a national platform again.
