11 March 2024/
GESTURAL INTUITION
Gallery Art Positive and Anu Bajaj Presents – GESTURAL INTUITION, solo exhibition by renowned artist Anwar, curated by Georgina Maddox at Bikaner House LTC Gallery, New Delhi from 15 March 2024 (11.00 AM – 7.00 PM). The Exhibition moves to Gallery Art Positive and will continue till the end of April 2024.
Renowned artist Anwar who has received many awards including Lalit Kala Akademi National Award (1995), All India Kalidas exhibition (1985), Bharat Bhavan Scholarship and Government of India Senior Fellowship (New Delhi1996- 97), presents his largest solo-show at New Delhi now.
“There are some of my works that are dynamic and convey a sense of being disturbed, where ‘blue is applied as if it were red’, evoking the same sense of passion and excitement,” says renowned artist Anwar who like many modernists believed that painting should be like music, where music can and it should stimulate patterns of sound, painting that can stimulate pure patterns of form, colour and line.
“I have always loved Anwar’s work, his simplicity, his process of creating and his thoughts that translate into his work. As one views Anwar’s recent and large body of work, one becomes aware that his search has been to evoke this sense of quietude and peace, through a delineation of colour geometrical forms and textures,” says Anu Bajaj, director, Gallery Art Positive.
“It has been argued by many artists that when one begins to look for a narrative in abstract or a specific meaning, then one loses the entire purpose of appreciating the work of art. Artist Anwar, born in 1964 at Ambha, Madhya Pradesh, living and working in Delhi is of the belief and he approaches his act of painting with a sense of wonderment and discovery that is admirable.
His prolific acts of creation are an almost daily engagement with colour on canvas, paper collage or mixed media. They are expressions of art made in the privacy of his studio and he believes them to be ‘an occurrence of intuition’, where one discovers a language that deeply is internal and personal. Abstract art as we know it is an understanding and visual representation of shapes, colours, forms and gestural marks that does not strive to ‘represent’ the world as we know it, rather it achieves its effect through communicating through a non-narrative, non-representation,” he added.
RENOWNED CRITIC – CURATOR GEORGINA MADDOX SAYS:
Greek philosopher Plato, believed that the highest form of beauty lies not in the forms of the ‘real world’ but in geometry. Modernists both in the East and the West, often discuss that abstract art, since it does not represent the material world, can be seen to represent the spiritual.
“It is the intuitive aspect of Anwar’s work and his gestural expressions, which manifest through powerful lines, geometric forms and his chromatic saturation that attracts me to his work as a curator. I want to convey to his viewers this recent journey along with the backbone of his past practice that stretches back over three decades,” says Critic-Curator Georgina Maddoxwho has curated this exhibition.
“Rather it is often associated with order, purity, simplicity and spirituality. Greek philosopher Plato, believed that the highest form of beauty lies not in the forms of the ‘real world’ but in geometry. Modernists both in the East and the West, often discuss that abstract art, since it does not represent the material world, can be seen to represent the spiritual. J Swaminathan (1928-1994), a leading modernist artist-critic and institution builder in early Modernism in India, to quote Swaminathan, “A work of art is…unique and sufficient to itself, palpable in its reality and generating its own life.” And it is this belief of J. Swaminathan shared with his protégées and Anwar was an enthusiastic and eager young artist from Gwalior, where he studied his National Diploma in fine arts in 1985, who absorbed much of his mentor’s ideology,” said Georgina Maddox, curator of the Show.
“A section of the works were created in palette of blue, ranging from shades of cyan to azure, turquoise to ultramarine, it is an orchestration is of tones, forms—triangle to square—that create the mood; one that travels from the unsullied freshness to and to one of potency and strength. Another suite goes from whites to light to dark greys blacks, evoking a sense of the monochromatic. It has been said that stark black and white are time honoured mediums since It calls attention to a person’s form or eyes, without the distractions of colour and vibrancy, however grey signifies a shade of equivocation, it has been signified as the colour of ‘intellect and of elegance’.
One of the biggest works of this exhibition, a large triptych presents in all its glory the sense of a journey that is intermediately filled with the complex emotions that are multi-toned. Anwar also brings to his work the lyricism of an Indian classical vocalist, Kishori Amonkar, who belonged to the Jaipur Gharana. A suite of paintings dedicated to this singer goes from the whites and greys to light blues and dark browns. It captures the clear tones of the Sur (the melody) to its crescendo and then its melting into the warmth of the next stanza,” he added.
