long happy hours & thereby happiness & other stories…

"Long Happy Hours and Thereby Happiness & Other Stories…"
A Group Show
Anant Joshi, Bharti Kher, Hema Upadhyay, Sudarshan Shetty & Sukhdev Rathod
27 Mar - 2 Apr, 2006

A body of works created by Anant Joshi in 2005 set the theme and title for this group show, titled, Long Happy Hours and Thereby Happiness &Other Stories…, which includes artists Bharti Kher, Hema Upadhyay, Sudarshan Shetty, Sukhdev Rathod, and Anant Joshi.

Joshi had been collecting at the time dismembered Japanese dolls for a video installation. He re-used the dolls to create a set of paintings. In one of them, an angled diptych, the dolls appear to be waiting in line to perform. The format of the painting and Joshi's rendering creates an illusion wherein the painted dolls appear to be waiting in line to perform, moving back and fourth between the two canvases, alternating roles between the audience and the performer. This set consists of three large paintings (2 large single canvases and one diptych).

Each of the artists in the show is similarly engaged in bringing to their work and process an element of play, drama and theatricality.

Bharti Kher's act of sticking hundreds of tiny bindis on large flat surfaces to create sweeping patterns of almost psychedelic colour bursts displays a repetitive, tedious, arduous, almost ritualistic quality to the process. The lush "Bindi works", are her stage on which the bindi's appear to be players in a grand musical orchestra.

Hema Upadhyay poses and performs in front of the camera to create photograph cutouts, which she places in her paintings juxtaposed amongst other media and elements. Her work, Bleeding Hearts, deals with the confrontations of personal phobias and shortcomings, as well as larger realities experienced as a result of urban migrations or political conflicts. The work displays her preoccupation with working with flowers - flowers being the symbol of a thank you, a get well soon, or specifically in this case, an apology.

Sudarshan Shetty presents a kinetic table-crutch-sculpture which makes its dramatic presence felt with its absurd arrangement, large size, and thumping mechanical sound.

Sukhdev Rathod, a young artist from Baroda is having a first time showing in this group show. A skilled and meticulous craftsman and sculptor, he creates 3 dimensional wall-works that mimic in miniature scale the painted backdrops and spaces one sees on a proscenium stage. The works feature powder-puff painted cutouts of clouds, jig-sawed guns, saws and hammers.