Global treasures, a suite of woven histories

At the Bespoke Gallery at Ahmedabad founder and collector Devin Gawarvala’s collection of international artists is a tale of woven histories and overlapping stories. Four sculptors and six artists create a corollary of conversations about technique, treatment and the power of compositional clarity in works that stand testimony to time.

Paintings of deep resonance 

The panoramic presence of famed Timur D’ Vatz’s The Journey is a beauty to behold. Born in Russia and now living in Uzbekistan, his work is replete with textural tenors and a fine juxtaposition of textile tints and tapestry woven metaphors. Here is a master storyteller who combines medium and metaphor to create stories that are woven from history and antiquity. The colours in his dictionary are versatile as well as varied. His handling of the human and animal forms creates a corollary of conversations that are at once fascinating.

Timur’s ability to merge ancient legends and symbols with a modernist style in luscious colours is inspired by ancient history, early Byzantine art and mediaeval tapestries. His exploration of core motifs signifies each historical transition. Drawing on these styles, and referencing literature, religion, and astrology, he creates a weaving of modern mythology intrinsically linked to iconic traditions of medieval painting. Devin says,  ” He is a winner of several awards including the Guinness prize for First Time Exhibitor at the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition, 1994. I consider him amongst the finest in the world. ”

The clown and the moon 

Yet another master of cubist brilliance is Uzbekistan’s Babur Ismailov with a melancholic work titled Inflating the Full Moon. In this chromatic imagery, he takes the age-old character of the clown and adds a touch of canine sensibility with the little pug dog as an observer as well as a participant. Grace and gravitas both come into being when you look at the clarity of composition. The clown is perfectly attired and aligned even though he watches the world from an upside-down position. The small moon is almost metallic, the gaze of the human one of pondering possibilities and trials and tribulations. The canine sits as a sentient being happy to be with his master, trying to understand the mood of the moment. Even in this solitude, there is both sadness and beauty.

Mystery and philosophy both become allies in Babur’s vocabulary. Babur is a commentator who is astute and accurate in observations and carries satire in his cinematic scenes. His reflections are solitary and aesthetics one of deep contemplation. Babur’s finest gift is his ability to fascinate viewers with the poetics of visual language, silently and subtly extracting new meanings that are consonant with time fleeting away from traditions.

War of roses 

Walera Martynchik’s War of Roses is a surreal delight of geometry and symbolism and the fragility of roses amidst the war of nations. Critics have said he is the heir of the highest tradition of Russian Avant-Garde and Abstract Art. Within the chaotic assemblage of objects geometrical shapes, weave a rigorous order in composition and colour. We are reminded of the symphonies of Russian composers like Tchaikovksy and Rachmaninov, this work is a dark, painted piece of music. Through compositional precision and rhythm, he creates personal chromatic choices based upon a profound understanding of the theory of colours. Within the perception of sadness and sorrow, we see an order of sculptural elements and the essence of melancholy. This work however is a study in creating a matrix out of still-life settings.

Jesús Curiá  and Simon Bannister 

Of deep impact and import are Jesús Curiá and Simon Max Bannister two international names of depth and gravitas. Curia’s Helicode and Construction are two works that dwell on man as a subject and metaphor. On view at the gallery’s location in Ambli in Ahmedabad, this exhibition showcases Curia’s distinct yet brilliant aesthetic style of using man as a muse.

Jesús Curiá is a Spanish contemporary sculptor, who revolves around the human figure, as he mixes figurative elements when shaping human heads with abstract notes when working on a body, trying to emphasize tradition as well as modernity in his simple act of paring down elements and combining figuration with minimal abstraction. In his Helicode he draws attention to the large wings that remind us of the great wing span of the Albatross, while we simultaneously admire the craftsmanship of the entire medley of patina and texture in this monumental work of wood and bronze.

Curia’s second piece snugly placed in the far end corner of this sunlit gallery is a tall slender figure of a man with architectural construction as his lower body. The rusted tenor in the texturing adds a flavour of the ruins of human civilisation and also speaks about the advent of high rises the world over as a lifestyle change to accommodate vast human populations.

Simon Bannister’s Falcon 

Of another measure in the beauty of nature’s species is Simon Max Banister’s Falcon created out of wooden splinters and bronze. Bannister is a rare genius who concentrates on different avian settings such as a bird’s nest, a pair of birds on a branch and this enchanting image of a falcon sitting in silent solitude. Expression at its finest is what brings this image its latent symbolism of the eternal relationship between man and nature as it serves as a silent reminder of conservation and preservation. The alchemy of wooden splinters creating a natural form of feathers creates an enchanting spectacle that turns into a reverie.

Flamingo with hybrid humans 

This exhibition provides a unique opportunity to see works that bring us into the dialogue of man and nature. The flamingo sculpture with a dog man and rabbit woman astride comes through as a sculpture of rich humour and perpetual wish for experimentation,  playfulness and profundity of sculpture as an exuberant art. Gillie and Marc from Australia,  are a pair of sculptors who create works of romance as well as inner resonant echoes of togetherness.

They revel in creating human hybrids who are created in a series of positions, varying and sometimes at variance with one another, that attempt to work through the ways in which a new modern culture of man-woman relationships, global communication, and urban lifestyles shape the role of the artist in today’s world.

Global Treasures as an exhibition reveals that art all over the world is also a celebration—of colours, of forms, as well as of the value of art that is not just formed of  personal revelations but is more an ode to the universal understanding of the interdependence of man and nature.

Images: Bespoke Gallery Ahmedabad