Iridescent colors and homunculus images that seem to shout
out from the canvas are the themes running through Chaos and Calm, an
impressive exhibition of paintings by Indian artist Ruee Gawarikar.
Displayed at the Artworks Trenton, the 15-odd paintings make
interesting use of fluorescence coupled with strong, dark lines. The artist's
effort is to represent modern day life and the daily chaos that comes with it.
The quest, as always, is to find the calm within the chaos.
There is representation of various aspects of daily life,
such as Trinity, which shows the three stages of man's life: childhood,
youth and old age, and the things that each of them brings and entails.
“A lot of my work is also inspired by Indian culture, from
which I have taken many representations,†says Gawarikar, pointing to The
Front Stabbers, a chaotic work that shows multi-fingered hands and
many-limbed bodies captured in various stages of agony, with images such as the
Laxmi's lotus thrown in. There is a face with eyes that look open, but cannot
see. There is a three-headed being, which evokes confusion and loss of
direction. It is a work that makes you wonder why there is so much confusion,
and yet you can identify with all of it – this is the life of modernity.
An accomplished Kathak dancer who has performed everywhere
from the Smithsonian and Times Square to the Jacob Javitz Center in New York,
Gawarikar feels that the world we live in offers too much, and in the modern
context of life, people only want more and more. It's the attempt to acquire
everything that makes one realize that it is altogether too much, creating the
chaos.
This is perhaps best exemplified by Mutation, which
shows man looking at what he has wrought in his own quest. A lot has been
achieved, but an equal amount has been lost. Now what to do with the
achievements?
The paintings also show an adequate portrait of the artist. A
Fine Arts Graduate from Bharatiya Vidyapeeth, Pune, Gawarikar also taught there
for some time before moving to the United States. Currently, she also runs her own dance school
in Central New Jersey, apart from being a
full-time parent. Her painting, Goddess of Visas is also currently
displayed at the Smithsonian
Asian Pacific
American Center’s
digital exhibition, “H-1Bâ€.
Some of the more impressive paintings at the Trenton Art Center
include a trio of smaller paintings, Blah Blah Blah, and the larger Split
Personality, Separation and Love, Lust and Chaos.
This and about a dozen other poignant artworks in various
shapes and sizes complete the exhibition, which runs till January 23rd,
2016.
