Questioning how a medium like printmaking—that was once used for mass dissemination of knowledge—can now be used for fine arts, a group exhibition by seven young and emerging printmakers from around India is on display at the Art Heritage Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam, Tansen Marg.
‘The Image Multiplied’, an exhibition that started on November 27 and will continue till January 16, explores the younger generation’s printmaking practice, which navigates the world during a pandemic, viewing it from a personal and community perspective. Curated by Amal Allana, director of Art Heritage, the works are “spontaneous and timely responses by a group of young artists using a medium that has been present for centuries.” She added, “I believe printmaking is a medium of the future that has the ability to create an impact.”
Creating political impact
Visual artist Sagnik Samanta, from Santiniketan, West Bengal, presents a set of photographs chronicling the tales of being stuck at home during the lockdown. They feature portraits of a woman sitting idly and smoking a cigarette, an image of a packet of groceries, and a woman walking down an empty street on her way to work. Avani Bakaya, an artist from Panchsheel Park, who we met at the gallery on Wednesday afternoon, mentioned, “What strikes me about Samanta’s work is that while he portrays mundane instances, there is an inexplicable depth about the characters that come alive through his photographs.”
An artist from South Delhi, Tushar Sahay’s series ‘Mental Turbulence’ germinated from his daily monotonous travels on the Delhi Metro. Depicting his characters as monkeys, his work is a comment on the mental stress and hopelessness that people felt during the pandemic. Similar in their use of animals as symbols, are Tejaswini Sonwane’s works. A video of the artist plays behind her self-potrait, where she depicts herself as a bird striving for freedom. Sonawane mentioned, “I made the self-portrait while looking at a mirror. Since prints are two-dimensional, through the video, I wanted to show the viewers exactly what I saw while making the portrait.”
Vadodara artist Abhishek N Verma depicts the ironies of contemporary life through his prints. “‘Stories of Many Darks’ is a collection that plays with shadows. I used light —shining from a nearby graveyard, and falling on a particular wall on our terrace—to create shadows, and documented day-to-day incidents, which unconsciously show different chapters of our lives,” he said. Each artwork has a QR code beside it, which gives the viewer an explanation of the work through audio by the artist.