Date:14/01/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/01/14/stories/2006011407870200.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

Abstract but colourful paintings

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: Bangalore's WelcomArt Gallery is all set to host an exhibition of the recent art works of artists Sultana Hasan and Mridul Chandra. The show will be held from January 18 to January 21, before moving on to Delhi, where actress Sharmila Tagore will launch a five-day exhibition at the Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre, on February 15. Sultana Hasan studied art in Paris and has been painting for over 30 years, while Mridul Chandra is from the Sir J.J. School of Arts, Mumbai, with several shows to her credit in the last 10 years. Both artists use oils and acrylics on canvas. Their paintings are figurative and abstract, with vivid colours and imagery employed to depict a range of moods and feelings.

Sultana Hasan's work is a thematic mosaic, a cross-cultural collage of painted colour inspired by the dual worlds she has lived in, the East and the West. The multiplicity of her imagery covers this macrocosm of civilisations — Apollo, the Mona Lisa and the Buddha — juxtaposed with the miniaturised portraits of her Indian sub-consciousness.

The images of Mridul Chandra are culled from her "lived reality". Her attempts to move beyond the predictable are evident, and her recent works have matured with time and experience.

The proportions of her works serve to depict moods. A metaphorical language is used to represent the complexity of the situation, and the structural complexity of her works makes her a strategic observer and narrator of the realities lived by her.