Fabular Futures

Contemporary artists Anupama Alias and Sanket Viramgami bring together ‘Fabular Futures’, an exhibition that will showcase a balance between the real and the imaginary, the personal and the transcendental.

Both the young artists invoke the power of myth and allegory to explore both inner and outer worlds. While Anupama’s works mainly delve into innermost thoughts, Viramgami investigates more of worldly concerns. Through their paintings they point towards a multispecies co-existence, where one can find human and animal protagonists along with flora and fauna morphed with human beings.

Speaking on the exhibition, Founder/Director Ms. Bhavna Kakar says, “Anupama Alias’s autobiographical portraits pry open the shutters of her inner world. On the other hand, Viramgami portrays more worldly concerns, such as multispecies coexistence, inviting the viewers to create their own narrative by navigating through the wealth of detail and discovering hidden elements.”

“Their unique styles, replete with mythical and fantastical elements, are a looking glass into the genre of magical realism. The works are a delight to experience in person, especially when contextualised within a space like Triveni Kala Sangam, which itself is imbued with such a rich cultural history,” she adds.

Viramgami’s richly patterned tapestry-like landscapes have vignettes of life buried deep within them. The viewer is called upon to navigate through the wealth of detail, like an explorer in a jungle, to discover hidden nuggets. There is no prescribed route that we are called upon to take, nor is there a set chronology of events that unfolds before us. Instead, Viramgami sets his audience free to construct their own narratives, connections and pathways to enter or exit the artwork.

The artist also brings together several temporal registers within a single frame, where past, present and future—as exemplified by his cast of characters—exist cheek-by-jowl with each other. So, one is just as likely to stumble upon a Mughal courtier as one is to encounter a mini-skirt-clad female. This quixotic universe often reveals strange bedfellows—pirouetting dancers, groups of armed soldiers, a bunch of nurses, or then mundane scenes of domesticity. Interspersed between them are often mythical and four-legged creatures.

Meanwhile, Anupama’s paintings and mixed media works have an autobiographical ring to them. Her female protagonists appear to be on a voyage of self-discovery, grappling with the strange circumstances they find themselves in. Their fears are writ large on their faces as they try to fend off calamities, which often leave them abandoned and marooned. These trials and tribulations appear to be projections of their own inner anxieties and demons as they navigate their way through different phases of life and womanhood.

When: December 22 to 30
Where: Shridharani Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam