Since 2000, a French artist, Alain TENENBAUM has opened “LES LAPIDIALES” (in Latin, “lapidis” means “stone”) to artists. This place is opened all year long but it is better to come between May and September: the residence program begins and during 5 months and you can meet artists from France and all over the world (Turkey, Russia, Zimbabwe, India) who come and work during some periods of two months. They work “in situ” according to one of the five themes of the site: water, the surface of the earth, the depths of the earth, the air, the fire.They work all day long, like quarrymen did before, but they have another aim: the transformation of stone into contemporary works of art.

It was in 2006 that Gadadhar OJHA, the only young Indian sculptor living in France, has heard the first time about the LAPIDIALES as he had participated to the 1st International Symposium of PEZENAS (in the South of France). 13 artists working on the unique theme “Message of the Body”, but amongst these artists at least 4 of them knew already the LAPIDIALES. And it was enough for Gadadhar OJHA to have the will, the desire to go and see how it was: working in an old quarry, what a strange and wonderful project!
In September 2006, like every year, during 3 days, this was the “closing session” of the Lapidiales, so we came and met everybody: organizer, artists, and … the site! And this is how it comes … Your work is your visiting card, you are invited by one artist who had worked before (one artist can give two names of new artists), then you learn some weeks later that you will work at the LAPIDIALES, says Gadadhar OJHA.

Gadadhar OJHA has worked in 2007, during May and June, on the part called “in the depths of the Earth” … Two months in the part of the quarry where there is less light, where there is more humidity, where it is more cold, where people who come could not see you, because there are so many caves, so many ups and downs, that visitors forget to go to see where artists work what could be the dark side of the existence.
But in the depths of the earth, you don’t know how life could be also interesting: first, when you enter on right side, you are invited by some gnomes surrounded with strange friends with strange smiles who invite you to one library where you find old books, and crane, and candles, and another crane, and an old pair of shoes (maybe from the artist of or the ones of the skeleton, lying there, waiting … ?). More far still in the right side of you, you can already seen (mistake, n to delete) also one big mouth with one woman emerging, from the throat, one big chain, you could be scared, but it is impossible because in the middle you see something else that show you the poetic part of existence.
Upon on huge black wall, suddenly you see one beautiful and peaceful human being, man? Women ? who knows ?, emerging from one lotus flower, showing to our eyes his/her half-nude body, the other part made by flesh, guts, intestine, heart, lung, brain … And in the center, one flower.
But there, it is impossible to be afraid, because, you know that from flower comes life, that this wonderful human being born in a flower gives birth, at his/her turn to another existence that from the depths of earth came to existence.
Suddenly, in the dark, you could see light, because slowly your eyes get used to this place, you can see also the structure: this personage is filled by horizontal lines. Those lines that follow you since you open yourself to life: the horizontal line that guides you to the sun when you wake up in the morning sunset SUNRISE, the horizontal line when you begin to write, the horizontal lines when you begin to learn. Lines that give also movement: is not a drawing a complex of lines jointed together? There, the lines give movement to this body, and even in the dark, light is caught by these lines. Come and see this strange vision with candles around him/her … Shadows will make the body dance, will make the flower rustle … and maybe, you will be able to see life in the depth of the earth? Those lines begin from the stone to go back through the stone. But where are they going? Gadadhar OJHA has all the answer at his work. And when I asked him Don’t you ever get tired? He said, “I never do anything that is not in my nature. You don’t ask the wind whether it gets tired of blowing or the sun whether it is tired of shining. This is because they don’t do anything that is not in their nature. And the thing here is that there is not pretension. There is no covering up of a mistake. There is no point in trying to appear as someone you are not. These are the principles that make my Art very strong.”
And when we lead through such examples, through our own lives, it becomes really effective in other’s lives also. People are moved by people, not just by principles. It’s a ripple effect. Gadadhar OJHA lives and works in Paris.
Contemporary Art Review: Ashok Art Gallery

Banoj Kumar Mohanty is one of the most talented upcomoing young artist in Indian art market.Coming from small town to world class cities ,artist has adapted urban culture on his works so neatly, with his own style and techniques.he has amazing art skill with creating different techniques,he is using different daily usable things,like paper,foil,pastel cotton and water color.His subjects are minimal and expressions are of broden vew.
And yet, on its own semi-uncomfortable terms, Banoj is fascinating, its quality, world and soul elements colliding and caroming off one another in endless succession, its cool grooves streaming by like dreaming on fantasy waves.Although his expressions are semi abstract,but he uses human forms to add reality touch There might be paradise in any of the places this artist, just off the main road from established genres and watching , but you get the sense that Banoj don’t live there long enough to find out more experiments,he is coming with some magnificent acrylics.He is undoubtly one of mainline upcoming fine art star to looking for.

Fine Art Review:Ashok Art Gallery

By inviting to create sculpture for our next proposed show,one of our mainline artist Mr. Gadadhar Ojaha,the only young Indian artist/sculptor living in Paris,France has updated me about his last year projects and all other completed works. Undoubtly sculptors have an important role to offer a sense of wonder and the miraculous to a world that lacks it.Artist Mr Gadadhar Ojha has said about his wonderful experience of working with all other international artists at paris.I have amazed when he showed me the lil video footage and photographs of his last work.Ahh..It is a huge Sculpture,the texcture,patterns and the overall contemporary forms are just superb. Although the decline of the ‘romantic’ notion of the artist and speculating about a new conception of the relationship between artist and society,but his works are contemporary figurative sculptures created in the expressionist tradition.Somebody argues that art is man’s defnese against insensitivity. Hehe, it’s clearly a comment on the lack of wonder and beauty in much contemporary art. The work never explicitly references walking, yet it invokes the physicality and psychology of this common activity. Small, sequential movements, each like the one before, create an impressive cumulative effect. Just as thousands of steps constitute a long hike.
Sculpture Reviews: Ashok Art Gallery