In the fourth curated exhibition since its inception Gallery Dotwalk is set to showcase a group show titled ‘Revisions on the Surface’ curated by Premjish Achari that focuses on contemporary paintings from India. The attempt of this exhibition is conceptually understanding the practice of painting. Through this exhibition the curator proposes that painting is developed through continuous revisions on the surface, whether it is canvas, board, or paper. Artists constantly tussle with the painterly surface to create fascinating imageries.
The event is going to be held till 3 January at Gallery Dotwalk. The exhibition features some of the most celebrated Indian painters like GR Iranna, Bose Krishnamachari, Shibu Natesan, Shobha Broota, Tom Vattakkuzhy and Aji VN along with young emerging talents like Mansoor Mansoori, Sneh Mehra, Manas Naskar, and Prajakta Palav Aher. A wide range of mediums, images and formats will be used to convey this idea of this exhibition. Premjish Achari states that the exhibition carefully engages with the painting process of the artists. He elaborated on his curatorial vision, “Many art historians and writers have attempted to conceptualise the practice of painting before. Through this exhibition I am engaging with the diversity of the painting practice and proposing that painting is a practice that emerges from the revisions on the surface made by the artist.”
According to Gallery Dotwalk Director, Sreejith CN the exhibition will help us to understand the artistic processes behind the practice of painting very carefully. Sreejith adds, “We have been planning this show for some time and this is the third time Gallery is collaborating with curator Premjish Achari on an exhibition. We are looking forward to such a fascinating theme and the carefully selected works of these important contemporary artists.”
Premjish Achari also made the mention of painting practice by French feminist and critic Helen Cixous. While writing about her experience of standing in front of a painting and observing it, Cixous writes, “I begin analytically processing this painting which moved me, having remained lit up in my obscurity. I began by asking it and wondering: what is this emotion made up of? Where does it come from? Where is it going? What does it say to me? I am not a ‘lover’ of paintings or of any other art, for that matter. I am somebody who lends herself to experiences which are vital, decisive, coming from elsewhere, and which of course relate to ‘me’. To ‘me’, to the me I do not know, my unconscious, my receptive surface. Which is in any case peculiar to art. One receives a work, whichever it is, only if it speaks to us in a language which is at once ours and not ours.” Unlike many of her peers, Cixous has extensively written on painting and artists. These writings were not mainly categorised as criticism; rather; rather they were poetic responses to the work of art. In her in-depth personal reading of the practice of painting, Cixous neither followed a conventional art historical reading nor the parameters of art criticism. Instead, Cixous based her writings on personal observations and the complex entanglement of language and image. She delves into the materiality of painting rather than philosophical questions about art or aesthetics. The attempt through this exhibition is also to unravel the materiality of the painting, mainly engaging more profoundly with the surface.