Celebrating 25 Year in Educating, B.K.College of Art and Crafts

B.K.College of Art and Crafts, Bhubaneswar, Orissa, India

Bibhuti Kanungo College of Art & Crafts has been a significant chapter in contemporary orissan art. Established in 1984, the BKCAC opened up new avenues for the artists to experiment and stretch their limits without being victimised by politics. The founder members of the college have responsibly delivered an environment with human ambience where artistic freedom could find an appropriate expression. The comprehensive effort of the teachers and students in the provided space, dreamt of a new world that deals with innovation and realisation. The integrated conviction has brought the BKCAC through these twenty five years; from a rented house at Kalpana Square to its own premise at Khandagiri in Bhubaneswar, from small rooms to spacious studios, from deputed teachers to permanent faculties, from town exhibitions to international exposure. In these years there have been ups and downs but the nuance and vibe of the associates has remained intact

Art education has been a non-state affair in Orissa. While the richness of the cultural resources has attracted many artists and scholars from all over the globe to enrich their knowledge, least has been ever thought for its development by the government. In spite of all the snags the resources have inspired several intellectuals to build on it a strong foundation that could be able to carry the legacy forward.

Bibhuti Kanungo College of Art & Crafts has been a significant chapter in contemporary orissan art. Established in 1984, the BKCAC opened up new avenues for the artists to experiment and stretch their limits without being victimised by politics. The founder members of the college have responsibly delivered an environment with human ambience where artistic freedom could find an appropriate expression. The comprehensive effort of the teachers and students in the provided space, dreamt of a new world that deals with innovation and realisation. The integrated conviction has brought the BKCAC through these twenty five years; from a rented house at Kalpana Square to its own premise at Khandagiri in Bhubaneswar, from small rooms to spacious studios, from deputed teachers to permanent faculties, from town exhibitions to international exposure. In these years there have been ups and downs but the nuance and vibe of the associates has remained intact.To mark this , all the students passed
from BKCAC has formed an organization AlumniBKCAC, and it will work towards upliftment and promotion of college and orissan art.
Some AlumniBKCAC are: Adwaita Gadanayak, Jagannath Panda, Pratul Dash, Sudhanshu Sutar, Ashok Nayak,Tapan Dash, M.Sovan Kumar, Pradosh Mishra, Pradosh Swain, Sambit Panda, Anup Chand, Prabir Dalai, Pratap Jena, Kanta Kishore Moharana, Paresh Choudhury, Deepak Harichandan, Ajay Mohanty, Siba Prasad Sahu,Meenaketan Patnaik, Ranjan Mallik, Rakesh Ratan, Smruti Ranjan Nayak,Manoj Mohanty, Swarup Panigrahi, Manas Ranjan Jena, Subhash Pujhari, Panchanan Samal, Pradeep Pandey, Rajesh Nayak, Sanjeev Sahoo, Pranati Panda, Naresh Das, Bibhu Patnaik, Satya Padhi, Subrat Mullick, Anjan Sahu, Tarakant Parida
AlumniBKCAC
City Office : Plot-132 1st Floor,Forest park, Bhubaneswar, Orissa, India, Pin-751009
Campus Office : B.K.College of Art and Crafts,Tapovana,Khandagiri
Bhubaneswar, Orissa, India, Pin-751030
Web : http://www.alumnibkcac.org/

The Ashok Art Gallery is internationally known for one of its most important holdings: more than 2000 major works by the world’s most significant Artists.Over the past years, as Ashok Art Gallery has become a major centre for contemporary visual art, the Gallery has built a strong collection of contemporary work of different artists.
Visit our gallery
http://www.ashokartgallery.com

Read Full Post »

Working on Global Warming and the nature’s fight against digital cosmopolitan life, Indian Young Artist Pradosh Swain

Not very long ago, many scientists and researchers were hoping that global warming would have a positive effect on the agricultural yield because of the role that carbon dioxide plays photosynthesis. However, on the contrary, it has been resulting in the destruction of several crops. In Iceland, rising temperatures have made sowing of barley easier and more effective than it was twenty years from now. This is expected to cut the area under maize – the country’s staple crop – by at least 33 percent. The reduction in rainfall has turned vast expanses of land into deserts.

It is important to understand that the effects of global warming that we are experiencing today are moderate compared to what the future will see if we do not take preventative action. Researchers and environmental experts are stressing that the effects of global warming will continue on a constant inclined curve over the next century. Temperatures will continue heating up a little bit each decade until the earth’s temperatures reach the sweltering levels. They believe that the earth’s temperatures will rise between two to nine degrees Fahrenheit by 2050. Increase in temperature will trigger the rise of sea level, which in turn result in salt-water intrusion into groundwater in some regions. This will reduce the availability of water for drinking and agricultural purposes in coastal zones. Further, increase in evaporation will reduce the effectiveness of reservoirs. The retreating of glaciers will have a number of different effects on water supply. A reduction in runoff will affect ability to irrigate crops adversely.

This is the subject Indian young artist Pradosh Swain working on.

At the very beginning of his art career, he started the nature study, and over the years it has become a part of his daily life. City of Temples, his native town Bhubaneswar, has greatly inspired him to study and create a new spread of water colour technique, for which he has been honored with Orissa State Award in 1995. “This technique has fascinated me after college years”, he says. He has traveled different states in India and Nepal. Pradosh has the credit of doing the highest number of water colour paintings amongst contemporary artists in Orissa. In this journey, he also did a series of smallest different templescape size (1cm x 1cm) and the longest 8ft x 160ft on FIFA World Cup Year 2006, which found a proud place in Orissa State Museum and has been published by different print media and aired by various TV channels. Pradosh has organized and participated in numerous art exhibitions across the country and is attracted towards contemporary art field from 1997. He came to Delhi and started photo realism with surrealistic touch. “It was a big challenge for me to enter this contemporary art world, but my simple concept and visual approach made me very close to my viewer”, he recalls.

He has been well appreciated by viewers and it has motivated him to create more and more art works. Pradosh Swain came to limelight when art curator Dr. Alka Pandey discovered him and recognize him as an upcoming young artist by including his works in her curatorial show this year. Pradosh’s work has been showcased in a number of private galleries in India like Ashok Art Gallery, Mon Art Gallery and Galleria at their shows in recent past.

Now-a-days he is working on Global Warming and the nature’s fight against digital cosmopolitan life. Use of the commonly used day to day elements make his paintings interesting and unique. After showcasing his works at Art Expo India, Mumbai, Ashok Art Gallery is going to put his works as a special exhibit at forthcoming India Art Summit 2008. He is an Indian young artist to watch for sure. Pradosh Swain lives and works in New Delhi.

Contemporary Art Reviews: Ashok Art Gallery

last hope by Pradosh Swain

Read Full Post »

Indian Art Expo 2008, a new begining in Indian Art Market

It’s an idea whose time has come. Art fairs and expos are held as a matter of routine all over the world. Art Expo India 2008 Mumbai is determined to catch up the global Art Market Trend.
Vickram Sethi, gallerist, curator and entrepreneur, takes this first significant step with Art Expo India 2008, which brings together professionals from various branches of the art world: From galleries to framers, buyers to artists at the World Trade Centre March 14-16, it has been organised by the Trade and Technology Exposition Co (India) Pvt Ltd, established in 1987 as an exhibition organising company headed by Mr Vikram Sethi.
He has managed to bring together art galleries from all over the country, Sethi says, even though many are still hesitant. “They want to wait and see how this one goes,” he smiles. Those that have signed up include Emami Chisel Art Pvt. Ltd. , Marvel Art Gallery, Karma Art Gallery, Archer , Ashok Art Gallery, Nitanjali Art Gallery, Arushi Arts Gallery, Art India Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd, Art & Soul, The Osmosis Gallery, Institute of Contemporary Indian Art, Klakriti Art Gallery, The Art Trust, Ashish Balram Nagpal.

In time, Sethi explains, there will also be support services showcased at the Expo — insurance, valuation and more. Art supplies and artists’ facilities are not being planned, at the moment. Sethi looks to this collection of industry-associated services being a huge success, since the art market in India is growing rapidly.

“It used to be NRIs buying art, but now every young couple wants to own something that they can be proud of,” he says. And this is where they can start.Harsh Goenka and actress Dimple Kapadia cutting the red ribbon and inaugurating the show. Making their arty-hearty presence felt at this ‘making a business out of art’ affair were a number of the city’s gallery owners, artists and art dealers, who came to check out the various stalls and works on display. Artexpo India 2008, which ends last week, offered Mumbaiites a chance to mingle with art industry professionals from across India. Young Indian Artists like Chintan Upadhyay, Pratul Dash, Venkat Bothsa, Amitava Dhar, Sajal Patra, Kanta Kishore, Jamal Ahmed, Gadadhar Ojha, Anup Kumar Chand, Binoy Verghese and Sanjeev Sonpimpare were hot favorite amongst all showcased and Ashok Art Gallery’s young artist representation was found most hunting place for all visitors.

Dimple was very impressed with the entire concept of buyers, gallerists and collectors all coming together under one roof. “Art Expo India will open the market for a wide range of products and services,” Vickram Sethi was overheard explaining to a guest.Also present at the show opening were Laila Khan-Rajpal, Pravina and Jamal Mecklai, Sarayu Doshi, Richard and Katherine Tan and artists Sajal Patra, Prithivi Soni, Vinod Manwani, Kanta Kishore, Pradosh Swain, Sanjoy Bose, Chintan Upadhyay, Sanjeev Sonpimpare and Jenny Bhatt. Art for art’s sake, indeed!
Ashok Nayak
Curator and Exhibition Director
http://www.ashokartgallery.com

indian art expo, indian art fair, Indian art market, Indian young artists

Read Full Post »

Young Indian Sculptor at LAPIDIALES!

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

Read Full Post »

Contemporary Art News:Art Exbhibition Reviews

Ashok Art Gallery presents :

‘CONTEMPORARYINTERNATIONAL ART EXHIBITION’

Curated By: Ashok Nayak

november 2007

india habitat centre lodhi road, new delhi, india

 First time in Indian Art Market, presenting the most debated women artist from Pakistan Amna Ilyas , the young women painter from Udhampur who is drawing a lot of attention, Kanchan Verma , the lovely lady with a amazing art skill from The Nederlands Thea Walstra and the eminent artist from USA Ruth Olivar Millan

All participating artists are : Amna Ilyas, Jayadev Biswal, Sanjoy Bose, Ajay Mohanty, Rohit Supakar, Pradosh Swain, Kanchan Verma, Kanta Kishore, Shiba Prashad, Sujat Pattanaik, Debashis Chakraborty, Ruth Olivar Millan, Sambit Panda, Anasuya, Thea Walstra

Ashok Nayak

Curator, Exhibition Director

www.ashokartgallery.com

Read Full Post »

Emerging Young Artist Pratul Dash

 

When I asked the most debated emerging young artist Pratul Dash about his artistic journey, he replied me with a quote ‘There will be a vital role of an artist to uplift the society’. He said although I live with my family with all responsibility, I always well aware of my real mean of living and Standing between the Heaven and the ground , Wanting to move forward and to stay down. Yes, he was absolutely right with his word, this year he has exhibited his works at several major exhibitions worldwide,and also become a happy father with a very sweet and cute baby girl, besides many exhibitions at India, his works are exhibited at USA and UK thrice this year with a great response. Every time works are just sold out at the first day of opening. His works are filled with fine detail, looks at life through various different levels, his bird, living in the hollows of the scaffolding claims this space as much as his home as any human does. Pratul Dash graduated with a BA & MA in Fine Art and was awarded an art Scholarship. He was also awarded by the Industrial Literature Society, Italy, won the M F Hussain Award, Delhi, Silver Jubilee award Orissa to name a few. His works are amongst many prestigious collections, both private and corporate throughout the world.Once he said,” i am a response, a series of other colors strung together tied by reaction and emotion, memory and experience, resisting or embracing, based on my days on earth….” Pratul works and lives in New Delhi, India.

Contemporary Art Review: Ashok Art Gallery

Read Full Post »

Women painter who is drawing a lot of attention ,Kanchan Verma

 

Is it true that another Amrita Shergill has introduced at Indian art? Another woman artist this time is Kanchan Verma. Immensely talented, she has created a huge volume of art works and She is creating more wonderful art works regularly now. Her works show colorful women drawn in realist and impressionist styles sometimes. Kanchan Verma is a young Indian women artist from Kashmir valley.She is living surrounded by every beautiness of nature and it reflects thoroughly at her works.Kanchan Verma’s work are deep symbols of women and a rich sea of colours that show a way to reach into the unconscious mind that is very vital. The symbols are highly concentrated and therefore are not to be interpretated in a near sense but give way to sophisticated interpretation. Her works enforces you to read your society and your background through her works with the baggage of those expectations and experience. We all know that political and cultural distinctions provide attraction, but there is the high danger that people just engage with a cultural mask in the end. I believe the banality of play between reaction and art can be more genuine. Work as form and its interrelation with people as consciousness is what counts.
All the six works are showing at Ashok Art Gallery interpretes the artists soul as an e.g. naturalistic picture or naturalistic dream, because there swing with so much connotations that are taken into account now and find a way out of the soul. Generations have peered at Kanchan Verma’s Artistic jurney.vew and wondered about its dark secrets. But now, after its creation, She believes she has the answers to its riddles. In contemporary India, there are many women painters who are drawing a lot of attention. And Kanchan Verma is one of them for sure.

Contemporary Art Reviews : Ashok Art Gallery

Read Full Post »