Catch a slice of Gouri Vemula's decade-apart first solo exhibit at Kalakriti 

Our eyes cannot help but be drawn to the profusion of lush greenery that sprawls on the surface in Kaagitham Kalam and Sera, Gouri Vemula’s first solo exhibition at Kalakriti in two decades, which has been painstakingly crafted by the artist. Gouri Vemula beautifully portrays the intricate elements of meticulous drawing that relate to the behaviour of human and animal shapes in both the actual and fantasy worlds. She adds a hint of fantasy, drama and emotion to the natural world through her paintings. Gouri 
says that her life continues to revolve around studying nature. Immediately after making live sketches, she goes back to the studio to create compositions.

Gouri Vemula, a painter well known for her imaginative landscapes earned her bachelor’s degree in visual arts from Jawaharlal Nehru Architecture and Fine Art University in Hyderabad and her master’s degree in visual arts from Sarojini Naidu School of Art in Hyderabad. She is the first woman artist from Telangana to win the Lalitha Kala Akademi 2019 National Award. Her other honours include the Prafulla Dahanukar Art Foundation’s All India Gold Award.

She unleashes her creative eye and gives us a glimpse of a world of fantasy with her compelling pen and ink artwork and impeccable sense of composition. Being from Hubli, Karnataka, the lush landscapes that keep appearing in her visual language may have been ingrained in her since she was a child. But occasionally, they can even take her to distant places in history that she has never directly encountered. The pieces she displays at the exhibition are a part of a bigger story that will explore how everything in the universe is connected. Her landscapes can be characterised as kaleidoscopes of vibrant re-imaginings of nature enhanced by significant artistic skill integrating her use of the processes of etching and drypoint technique on paper. From her paintings, we can get a sense of Gouri’s keen eye for detail, ardent love for the medium, and subtlety of her art.

Gouri is a printmaker who specialises in the rapidly dying art of zinc plate etching. She received her master’s degree in printmaking from Hyderabad University. However, the process is time-consuming and requires a large setup, so she began creating drawings. With the exception of the medium, her work style hasn’t changed. She experiments with a lot of artistic mediums including acrylic and others but her style of painting has remained constant throughout. Intense, meticulous, surrealist, enigmatic, thought-provoking, and elegant are some of the descriptors Gouri uses to characterise her art. “I don’t really plan it out. The work comes naturally to me. My craft is a combination of what I imagine, what I feel and how I react,” she says. This is her first solo show in 20 years in this city and we enquire as to what prompted her to hold a presentation now. “I am feeling excited to have my work exhibited at Kalakriti Art Gallery after two decades, It took so long as I have been engaged with various galleries in the past few years. Having a show in Hyderabad is like coming home,” she says. 

Till November 5. At Banjara Hills.

E-mail: chokita@newindianexpress.com

Twitter: @PaulChokita