Tintin will never be like me!

I would hate it if my favorite storybook hero Tintin were to grow old, fat and grumpy -like me!

It will never happen, never happen, never happen!

Or is that marriage can make one so, even Tintin?

More interesting stuff at the link.

Artists against windmills

Artists love to be for a cause.

This group has an interesting cause -
They are against windmills!

In their words-

We are a world wide group of artists who share a love of the countryside and all wild places. We fight to save them, and their wildlife, from being turned into Industrial Wind Power Stations.

Now, that's a noble cause.

Art du jour

Blue on blue 1

pastels 

by 

Alan Stevens

Anybody thinks that any of our Great Cheese(mahan cheez) can ever do anything that even comes half-way close- even if their lives depended upon it?

M.F.Husain?
Jatin Das?
S.H.Raza?
Ganaeh Haloi?
Arpana Caur?

Anybody?
Anybody at all?(except Sanjay Bhattacharya)

If not, then why are these talentless hacks considered grrrrrreat artists?

Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?



Compare and contrast-

 a nude by one of the Great Cheese-

Untitled 01
charcoal drawing on paper

16.5" x 12"
2006 

by

Akbar  Padamsee

What amateurish stuff pretending to be 'deep'.

I would like to say -shame, shame!

But it's no use.
The art-elites float in a hubristic ether where human emotions like contrition, honor and shame do not register even as a blip.

But hey, I will do the right thing and say it anyway. Nay, I will shout it out loud-

SHAME, SHAME!

Traffic Light Pigeons- a recent work

If you have followed my work, you might have noticed that the pigeons are a favorite subject of mine. Here is a recent painting -

 

Traffic light pigeons

Watercolor and gouache

24 X 34 cm

 

More on this at  -My art and art techniques-the art of gurmeet .

 Update- 
Oops! Should have posted this detail from the painting -

Political art du jour-Iranian protest poster

An Iranian opposition protest poster-

chullu bhar pani for M.F.Husain

Feeling kind of down today....so I will just post a Sanjay Bhattacharya painting and stare at it for a while-

(click  for a larger image)

Twilight, Kesroli

Oil on canvas

175 X 137 cm

Sanjay Bhattacharya's other marvelous Kesroli work -Morning, Kesroli here.

 The great-grandaddy of Indian painting, M.F.Husain should take one good look at one of Bhattacharya's fine paintings and then go find some clean, filtered chullu bhar pani to jump into*.


Compare and contrast- 

Lady with Horse 

by 

M F Husain
14 x 18 inches 

Acrylic on Board

 This, the arty-sharty types will assert, is a great work of art. Don't be intimidated by their art-speak mumbo-jumbo.Are you going to believe these charlatans or your lying eyes?



*The colorful Indian language translator-

     chullu bhar pani - refers to the colorful Indian expression -'ja, chullu bhar pani mein doob mar' which "which essentially says that the concerned person who has incidentally done something shameful should go drown himself in a handful of water"

Dr.Doom does art

Dr.Pachauri takes time out from his relentless efforts to turn civilization on it's head and opens an art exhibition-

Image from print editon of the Hindustan Times,Delhi, 31/10/2009

Art du jour -astronauts by Scott Listfield

Some very interesting - and arresting! -paintings by Scott Listfield who paints "astronauts and, sometimes, dinosaurs"-

Under the Flight Path

Oil On Canvas

 

His oils have an "acrylicky" look, no? Here's another-

Men's Room

Oil On Canvas

Doo-da in the mail

There's a lot of gibberish that arrives in the mail. Not all of it is spam or financial investment proposals from Nigeria -some it is a self-consciously pretentious artspeak laden pitch lobbed by an art gallery trying to peddle it's rotten wares. E.g. this arrived a few days ago-

This series (of art works) is an internalized perception of a world that is complex, but on paper becomes the embodiment of transcedentally lucid concentration. While colour is the core around which Manish's work revolves, it is also the environment within which the artist explores texture. His works are born out of propositions of apply and excavate, add and subtract and are aimed at the ultimate search - the creative state that seeks integration with the sublime.

Wearily I clicked  on the link(just don't ask why) and I found this -

 some kind of an art work by

Manish Pushkale

and other similar splotches, botches and doo-da.

You may see more of this gentleman's works here.

I failed to see the internalized perception of  a complex world, or of anything and I totally missed what must have been really bloody marvelous transcendental lucidity of ..... whatever.

But then that's just me. Here's hoping that -as the artist applies and excavates,adds and subtracts(or is that a math student working part-time on a construction site?)- he will soon integrate himself with the sublime.

Hopefully then he won't need to waste so much precious paper.

The art of Art Scholz

Some sparkling watercolors by Art Scholz-

Porch

Old Reliable

Three's Company

These three stood out on his page at the Fine Art America.

Here is my own page at that site.


Compare and contrast-

something very silly by Bharati Kher-

Terrain

2006

bindis on painted board diptych

183 x 198 cms

Crow and the water pipe

A dainty but bold watercolor – by (ta-da!)me.

Click for a larger image

Crow and the water pipe

watercolor on specially prepared paper

21 X 27.3 cms

This was done when I was in an wild, experimental mood. I had to do something different, I had to experiment, to do something, anything that would challenge the bourgeois complacency, question the violence that lurks beneath our consumerist civilization, to…to…


Ok, I was kidding about the bourgeois/consumerist bit -I am not interested in playing that game.That is too easy –one can do anything idiotic and and get somebody to mouth the usual meaningless artspeak, say-

“The phenomena created by him reveal the omnipresent but invisible, strong yet unnoticed, essential yet overlooked. An encounter with his works discloses not just the world surrounding us but also the self within. Often casting himself as the subject and creator, (artist name) allows the viewer to transgress the boundaries between elements, as they connect and converge into one another, questioning the very nature of reality. ” *

Ok, whatever.


Anyway, here are some details:

Deatil 1-

Detail 2-

For more on technique of this painting see the expanded post at My art and art techniques.



* The artspeak is from the promo literature of an exhibition of works by A.Balasubramaniam called (IN)BETWEEN at the Talwar Gallery. Unfortunately there is no direct link to the text – an irritating result of overreliance on javascript popups.

Old City – a study

   A very quick pen and wash I did-


Detail 1-

Detail 2-



(Cross-posted at My art and art techniques )

Turn Right -Pretentious Tedium Ahead

Peter Whittle reviews Beautiful Losers, an art documentary-

This American documentary about a group of so-called ‘do-it-yourself’ New York artists (is there any other kind?) would be endurable if it had been a spoof, a sort of Spinal Tap for the contemporary art scene. But no, it’s in deadly, stony-faced earnest. Director Aaron Rose has crafted a paen to the mediocre and the talent-less who are all, like, creative, and all, like, make stuff, and who’ve all gone on to, like, world acclaim. Amongst those sharing their banal, brain-deadening thoughts with us about the inspirational qualities in skateboarding, graffiti and hip hop are Jo Jackson, Ed Templeton and Thomas Campbell, As you watch the movie wholeheartedly and uncritically celebrate the group’s ‘non-conformist’ ethos (shouldn’t someone gently break it to them?), you can almost feel the energy being sucked out of you.

 

Haven't seen nor intend to. The directors own description of the film is enough to put one off-

Beautiful Losers focuses on the telling of personal stories. It speaks to themes of what happens when the outside becomes "in" as it explores the creative ethos connecting these artists and today's youth.

That’s a big “Pretentious Tedium Ahead” billboard.

A view of the Connaught Place by Kashinath Das

Click for a larger image

A watercolor

by

Kashinath Das