UK
presents THE MAMBO AND THE LULLABY : A TRIBUTE
paintings drawings sketches by
GURCHARAN SINGH at
28 Cork Street Mayfair, London W1S 3NG United Kingdom
Exhibition opens from Sunday, 30th March to 5th April, 2008 12 pm to 8pm
India preview at
Gallery Art & Soul 1. Madhuli, Shivsagar Estate, Worli, Mumbai on Monday 10th March 2008, 6 pm
For further information please contact: VAISHALI THAKKAR Tel : +44 (0) 208 930 1783 / 8204 3866 (M) 07951 433021 (India) +91 9979605751 info@visualartuk.com www.visualartuk.com
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THE MAMBO AND THE LULLABY: A TRIBUTE Sepia conversations --sudden orifice in barren fields lickerish, lusty sundowns gird up that shallow well. Memories ricochet, casting glassy shadows over melting dreams. The seasons are determinedly stable but our desires soar, love, as the dry leather skins of the fields finally, finally quiver open with the first drop of rain. People, things, memories, conversations and all creatures great and small have an immense, heroic role to perform in an individual*s life. And if that individual is an artist, their roles are clearly demarcated as those of protagonists for a complex, involuted universe. In Gurcharan Singh*s paintings, an inveterate telling of a story or of many stories is implicit. Men, animals, objects and ideals cohabitate in a primordial, almost naive world. The artist merges, overlaps or simply traps his wandering heroes in conjunction with architectural detail and the resultant images contain both, fabulation as well as tangible truths.
These infrequent masked travellers within Gurcharan*s paintings seem to reveal far more than they conceal, contrary to what a masked creature would normally do. They float in and out at whim, they peer from within spiralling skins and best of all, they are supremely unconscious of being *watched* as it were. They have a role to perform and they do so with intermittent curiosity and mischief. Gurcharan*s overview of the world created on his canvas is that of a sutradhar; his involvement is, in many ways, narratological and almost clinical in that, his protagonists lead highly individual lives, unconscious of both him as the creator as well as their compatriots. Then again, they are sediments of a physical world from which the artist himself emerges and in turn, gives shape to them. Day ripens into night and night grows up into yet another day. Colours are the vehicles for inducing the mood of a given work and to that end, light as always, plays a primary role in Gurcharan Singh*s paintings. The artist is besotted with human as well as animal forms and yet again, it might be seen how some of the most powerful elements of nature manifest themselves not so much with elan, but with simplicity and innocence which have little use for cerebral interference. Magic is scooped from mundane reality and the mambo could just as well be celebrated with a lullaby for a new-born. Relationships, these paintings seem to say, do not thrive on words, but on their meaning. Anahite Contractor
Gurcharan Singh employs familiar allusions in his paintings such as the occasional masked face among the several others. Besides the obvious symbolism of the duality and the ambivalence contained in a mask, what is reiterated in these works is the yearning for a somewhat nostalgic and pristine quality of a world which is now overridden with the hurly-burly of mundane routine and one which dreams of a hybridised reality soaked in phantasmagoria and fun.
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‘Untitled-4’ Acrylic on paper 22”x 30”
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‘Untitled-5’ Acrylic on paper 22”x 30”
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‘Untitled-6’ Acrylic on paper 22”x 30”
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‘Untitled-7’ Acrylic on paper 22”x 30”
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‘Untitled-8’ Acrylic on paper 22”x 30”
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‘Untitled-9’ Acrylic on paper 22”x 30”
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‘Untitled-10’ Oil and acrylic on canvas 10”x 12”
‘Untitled-11’ Acrylic on paper 22”x 30”
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‘Untitled-13’ Acrylic on paper 30”x 22”
‘Untitled-12’ Acrylic on paper 22”x 30”
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‘Untitled-3’ Oil and acrylic on canvas 10”x 12”
‘The Gathering-1’ Oil and acrylic on canvas 54”x 66”
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‘Untitled-2’ Oil and acrylic on canvas 13”x 11”
‘Social Situation-1’ Oil and acrylic on canvas 54”x 66”
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‘Untitled-1’ Oil and acrylic on canvas 12”x 18”
‘Unbious Preaching’ Oil and acrylic on canvas 24” x 66”
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‘Untitled’ Oil and acrylic on canvas 12”x 18”
‘Social Situation-2’ Oil and Acrylic on canvas 54”x 66”
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‘Social Situation-1’ Oil and acrylic on canvas 48”x 60”
‘The Morning Gathering’ Oil and acrylic on canvas 67.2” x 34.8”
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Gurcharan Singh Born 1949 and studies at the College of Arts and Crafts, Chandigarh. He has held solo exhibitions at major galleries in Chandigarh, New Delhi, Mumbai, Paris and Canada. One of our most outstanding figurative painters, he paints ordinary folk men, women, children and animals. His works are on display at the Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, India House, Paris, France, Beckett Gallery, Canada, Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Calcutta and Musuem of non-aligned countries like Yugoslavia.
‘Untitled-14 Pen drawing 11”x 15”
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UK Tel : +44 (0) 208 930 1783 / 8204 3866 (M) 07951 433021 (India) +91 9979605751 info@visualartuk.com www.visualartuk.com
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UK Design : Sunil Sud
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17 Salehurst close, Harrow Middlesex HA3 0UG, UK Tel: +44 (0) 208 930 1783 / 8204 3866 (M) 07951 433021 Email : info@visualartuk.com www.visualartuk.com Printed by : Saroja Communication
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