(Art Review :: Volume 4)
The Art Of Randhir Khare –
In pen and ink, acrylic & mixed medium on paper and canvas
Stunning in their range of technique, line, form and colour, the works on display celebrated through line and colour the world within us as well as the world outside us.
According to the artist, ‘That which is inside me is enclosed in circles, floating prehistoric forms merging and separating, interlocking, dissolving into orbs of energy. Each element becoming symbolic of all that makes me who I am. That which is outside me is alive with intricate patterns that nature is made up of. I mirror the earth and the web of life that it reveals to me. I work with pen and ink on paper, and ink and acrylic on canvas. The surfaces of paper and canvas aren’t large but deep and intense. The work on show is roughly divided into three parts: Mandalas Of My Heart, Mountain Births & Earth Lines.’
Khare’s meticulous yet energetic pen and ink drawings powerfully reflect both the personal as well as the collective and without crowding spaces he manages to invest his visual creations with expanded symbology. ‘ When a line begins to move across blank space, it charts a pristine path – creating on its way a passage of certainty… A line gains life when you allow it to catch its own flow, which in fact is your flow. You need to trust lines when you give yourself to them.’
On the other hand, his use of colour on paper, canvas board and canvas is muscular and exuberant – colour and textures revealing themselves with astonishing rhythm and balance. ‘Colour offers me new ways to express myself as I journey along my path of light and dark.
Sometimes, when I work with colour with my fingertips and palms on paper and canvas, I can feel the touching and stroking of my skin on the surface, releasing the colour, spreading, dabbing and gently flowing – colours kneaded into colours, releasing new tones and textures, birth and rebirth merging and separating and the great pulse of the surface beginning to throb into life.
Then the time of letting go – fingertips and palms moving away. When I look at my palms I can see the way in which the paint highlights the mesh of patterns on my skin the universe of myself.’
THE BOOK OF LIFE
A highlight of this exhibition was the BOOK OF LIFE project inspired by Randhir Khare’s art on display. Visitors of all ages were invited to experience the artist’s work and then contribute their own visuals and words which celebrate their own lives on special handmade paper that was provided to them. Children and young people from eight city schools as well as well as people of all ages participated and their art adorned Gyaan Adab’s event area.
Randhir Khare
Curator
