Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way- Edward de Bono
Creativity does make artists explore from established patterns and paradigms to realms beyond – unknown and fantasy. These flights of imagination result in distinct visual expressions which then fructify in a visual vocabulary. For young artists the initial journey is exciting - filled as it is with discoveries, trepidation, eureka moments, creative thoughts and concepts and an urge to arrive with a bang. It is for such artists that the late Remani Nambiar of Shrishti Art Gallery in conjunction with Alliance Francaise and Goethe Zentrum had provided a launching pad, a platform to bring their art to the fore. Now Remani’s daughter, Lakshmi Nambiar, is taking the baton forward in curating such exhibitions which help in fostering the growth of the young generation artists.
The canvas and horizon of these artists embarking on the new journey is vast. Their creative path is strewn with endless possibilities. Their thoughts, their dreams, their milieu, their education, their upbringing and a whole of things condition their artistic practice – be it painting, sculpture or graphics or new media. It’s surely an exciting cauldron simmering with ideas, forms, and content.
So far Shrishti Art Gallery has been supporting the outgoing students from art colleges and universities in Hyderabad. Now Lakshmi has taken a step ahead to include students from MS University of Baroda, endowed with a premier art faculty. The Faculty of Fine Arts, MS University of Baroda was among the first to initiate a new approach to teaching and learning art – theory and practice. Importance is still being given to the exploratory process to understand oneself and one’s art. For a student here, art is a language.
The Fine Arts School at Hyderabad Central University has more or less absorbed the MS University pattern of teaching and practicing art which is different from the academic style/pattern introduced by the British which is being followed by many of the Art institutions in India, which lays emphasis on skill rather than an explanatory approach.
For Hyderabadi art connoisseurs, this exhibition is an opportunity to see and absorb the different approaches and practices in art and its possibilities as a visual language.
Radhika Rajamani