Colours of Emotion: Nine Artists Lend a Contemporary Touch to Navarasas

THE HINDU
By Harshini Vakkalanka

INDIA---One often gets to see the navarasas play out in the realm of the performing arts, but it is not very often that they are so strongly brought out in visual art, through paintings or sculptural pieces. And Lina Vincent Sunish has worked with just this theme in her latest curatorial venture, Rasa on view at the Mahua Art Gallery. The exhibition features nine artists, each exploring and expressing the individual rasas through their works. The idea behind the exhibition, despite the fact the theme has been playing on Lina’s mind for a while to bring out Indian aesthetics and identity but in the contemporary. [link]

• Bangalore-based artists Naveen Kumar explores the Shringar rasa (love) 
• Praveen Goud, in his series of sculptural objects (titled Man With Pipe) combines LED lights and m-seal (with ready-made materials) to create an almost nonsensical personality in his expression of the haasya rasa (laughter).
• The adbhuta rasa (wonder or surprise) are revealed through Bhavani’s panel of 16 paintings depicting the tributaries of the Cauvery in the Kodagu landscape as well as Aishwaryan Kumar’s interpretation of the karunya rasa (compassion).
• Niranjan H.G.’s photographs of rock formations where he takes the colour yellow which corresponds to the deity of Veeryam (courage) to directly symbolise the rasa. 
• The exhibition features two folk artists, contemporary Madhubani artists Naresh Paswan and Amrita Jha.
• The exhibition also features works by Kurma Nadham and Sanjay Manna.