Curated by Soma Bhowmik
Lines are the basic tools for almost everything in art. They have multiple functions to play and a vast range of visual ideas to imagine, create, and negotiate. Lines are perhaps the most engaged elements in a work of art, accompanied and aided by tonal, textural, spatial usages. In the context of any visual art, the presence of lines always plays in our mind, whether the lines are visible or not. Lines have inescapable presence in art.
The curatorial concept of this show is rooted in this aspect of lines where they emerge as diverse visual possibilities leading to multifarious visual concepts, idioms, and forms. Representational or non-objective, abstract or narrative, two-dimensional or three-dimensional, lines and their movements behave as active and almost decisive agents in redefining the artistic forms and ideas. The inherent resilience and flexibility of linear applications lend themselves to be explored by different artists diverse ways, often in great contrast in visual effect and perception.
Lines have no ends in both directions and the possibility towards the infinity is immense, is the underlying premise of this curatorial concept. Beyond its literal and physical proposition, the idea lines have no ends also suggests that historically the genesis of lines are untraceable, and their future is indefinite. The above idea empowers the lines and their various notions with a sense of liberty that itself has a long history from the pre-modern to modern art. Presently, in contemporary art, in association with the larger social and visual experiences, the concept has deepened further inviting curious explorations, and innovations.
In this show all the artists play and perform with different kinds of lines and linear insinuations irrespective of concepts, compositions, mediums, materials or forms. The eight artists showcased in this show are conceptually and even stylistically different from each other, but a thin line of interconnection is also perceptible as all of them reveal an extraordinary sensitiveness towards the language of line.
The experimental approach to forms and their play between the figurative and nonfigurative seem to be energized by the power of lines, despite the differences and dissimilarities, thus leading to their respective visual languages. There are certain creative moments when enormous presence of lines are shown directly in the composition, especially in three dimensional forms, where as in some other works lines play a subtler role quietly. Interestingly in some of these three-dimensional works the forms are very lucidly abstract, denying the conventional realist function of academic lines, whereas in certain works lines emerge in an alignment with the academic realism, revisited in the present context. Every work therefore happens to be a very individual approach by the artist. Even the use of colour is very minimal, the palettes of the artists are very limited, and the images are very unusual. Despite the strong individual identities, theses diverse works share a certain temperament highlighting concerns that make us aware of the life and it's unpredictable implications around.
