Art ConCurrenCe features works of new and veteran artists put together by two galleries from Chennai and Mumbai

The ongoing exhibition ‘ConCurrenCe’ at Forum Art Gallery marks the coming together of two galleries — Chennai’s Forum Art Gallery and Gallery Beyond from Mumbai. The show comes to Chennai from Kochi, where it opened to coincide with the Kochi-Muziris biennale.

ConCurrenCe features paintings and a few sculptures from both the galleries’ collections — in all 49 works by 29 different artists. For the Chennai art lover, there’s a nice mix of the familiar and the new, works you might have already seen at a previous exhibition at Forum, alongside works by Mumbai-based artists you might be viewing for the first time. There’s also a good mix of works by senior and up-and-coming artists, making for an interesting whole.

You have, for instance, some gorgeous signature pieces from senior artists in the city, such as Achuthan Kudallur’s abstracts in warm reds and yellows, M. Senathipathi’s brilliantly textured abstract figuratives, C. Douglas’ darkly poetic ‘Journey’, and K. Muralidharan’s playful, colourful depictions of gods and goddesses. Then, you have samplings from previous shows at Forum, such as Sisir Sahana’s iridescent glass sculptures that glow in a multitude of hues; Puneet Kaushik’s beautifully unusual works with coral beads fanning out across the canvas; Seema Kohli’s intricate works celebrating nature and the human form; and Fawad Tamkanat’s pop-art style works that capture the chaos of city life and streets.

An intriguing series of digital media works come courtesy Harsha Biswajit, exploring the seven chakras of the human body and of the migration of animals through minutely detailed artwork.

From Gallery Beyond’s collection, we have Preetha Kannan’s gently brooding black-and-white images of Mother Nature, of rippling waters and swaying leaves. Senior artist Anjana Mehra’s dystopian mixed media works, on the other hand, depict a cityscape of towering high-rises, a rotting world of pollution and decrepit buildings on the verge of collapse. Manish Chavda’s vast, dreamy oils feature leaves drenched in deep indigo or purple moonlight, or in surreal chlorophyll green daylight, while Chandra Bhattacharjee’s acrylics are all about toil and labour, of grinding machinery, tears and sweat. If Sanjay Yamgar’s work is an explosion of incredibly vibrant colour, all gloss and chaos, Prakaash Chandwadkar’s work inspired by Buddhist monasteries is contained, meditative and peaceful.

This is, of course, but an incomplete description of the exhibition featuring works of a number of other remarkable artists, including S. G. Vasudev, S. Nandagopal, and more. It ends on February 2.

DIVYA KUMAR