The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : The Buddha is smiling here for children

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, May 15, 2006

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

The Buddha is smiling here for children

Staff Reporter

The show of paintings and drawings will be on till May 25

AWE INSPIRING: One of the works on display at the Time and Space Gallery in Bangalore.

BANGALORE: The Buddha is smiling again, right here, at Time and Space Gallery.

The Buddha smiles for the children who will be benefited by an exhibition of the same name.

The show of paintings and drawings by M.S. Murthy, K.S. Nagure, K.K. Raghava and G. Subramanian will be on at the gallery on Lavelle Road till May 25 between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. except on Sunday.

Not formally trained

The show may be titled "The Buddha". But the artists featured in the show are not formally trained practitioners of Buddhist iconography.

They are not masters, but pupils of Buddhist thought. As a critic puts it, "For an unshackled contemporary artist, there are no set limits. For him, painting can at once be a meditative step and an assertive, even daring act."

Choice

The artist has the choice to follow his own path, to create his own trajectories of spiritual thought, to satiate them with his favourite elements be they of spontaneity, decorativeness or divinity. "In his voyage, like an inquiring "bhikkus", he too could realise the significance of a handful of leaves picked by the master and those on the tree in the woods. And discover a little Buddha lying in each one of them." The creations featured here are the result of an imaginative probing.

"Their search for the hidden Buddha leads them through their variegated lines and colours, to the stretch of the canvas, to the fibre of the paper, to the music of a brush stroke, to the whistling shade and muffled tone, to the stillness of a silent space, and to promise of a visual hymn," the critic says.

Vibrant watercolour works

Best known for his vibrant watercolour works, Murthy has won the International Biennial Award from the Iran Academy of Arts for his collection, "Buddha the light".

Nagure from Kamalapur in Gulbarga district has won several awards, including the Vijay Shree Award and the State award.

He has held several exhibitions across the country.

Raghava began his career as a cartoonist before venturing into painting.

Style

He developed his own style in which he paints large watercolours on canvas with his hands and feet. He has showcased his works in 13 countries.

Subramanian won the Biennale Award in 2003, and has bagged the AIFACS Award 2000.

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