Bhopal Gas Tragedy

Since past few days, Mumbai tragedy had been a nightmare.God bless those who were victims of it. However 2nd of December reminds me of one tragedy that I was victim myself.

I remember distinctly,I was just back home after my bypass surgery. The nightmare i was seeing would just not end.
People on the street all short of breath, having eyes full of watery discharge, Screaming,trampling over each other.

I had woke up to a pungent smell something similar to the smell of red dry chillies on hot oil. My eyes were continously having a discharge and No matter how deep i breath it always felt short. When I looked around, everyone was in a similar state. Very soon heard someone screeming "Jahrili Gas, Maroge Sab" (poisonous gas all will die).

Fortunately we were among those who survived. OVer the coming weeks the death toll mounted up. Even after months .. everything living continued to die. Just like that.Even today I can feel the anguish and the tragedy that struck us.

Shortly after the Bhopal Gas Tragedy There were a few works that I did to take that pain and anguish out of me.

(We were fortunate to have a Hill nearby which we climbed. With higher altitude the gas thinned out. But not many of my city dwellers were this lucky. )

Migratory Birds

Since sometime back I had been quite fascinated by migrating birds. There are many places in India where these birds flock.

Inspired by these flock of vagabond birds I had been working on a new series.

Here is a working sketch on the concept.

Fake Paintings and the concept of ARN Number

Yesterdays newspaper contained a bitter reality about the Booming Indian Art Market. The link is here

Intrestingly the newspapers did not mentioned, how police got to know that this gallery was dealing in fakes. I think it is quite difficult to spot fakes unless the artist himself mentions it. As it is there is there is already a dearth of art historians/research scholars who would study and verify the artist with the study of his brush strokes or the pigment quality.(There is someone in Pune Maharastra who is a pro but I do not think there are many like him).

Concept of ARN number.

ARN number (Artist Reference Number) is unique Artist reference number that is to be assigned to every painting that goes out of the studio. Image of painting in my website has same name (and tooltip)as the ARN. The same number is written behind the painting also. (More details on the nomenclature later)



The basic fact that this is on net allows a person to have a second opinion apart from the authenticity letter for the work he/she has bought.

We have tried to keep it there for all the new paintings since Nov 2007. Slowly we are trying to incorporate it with all the past paintings too. It is a long and arduous process. But in the end it guarantees, paintings that I have made are properly catalogued. I intend this information on internet to be available free of cost to anyone who wants to verify works made by me.

This is not a silver bullet for fake paintings, but I think it makes sense.

India Art Summit

Since past few days I was in Delhi got me an opportunity to visit the Art Summit. This is the first art fair of modern and contemporary art called "India Art Summit". Along the lines of international art fairs like FIAC, Art Basel and Freeze, this is India's step into the asian art fairs circuit


Artist got an opportunity to meet so many art lovers and numerous art galleries. Fortunately (or unfortunately) it was not a commercial event. More or less it reminded me of the Kumbh Mela. . Everybody taking a holy dip in River of Colors.


I am returning to Bhopal tonight.

PS: A few Pics from the Summit are attached below

Bull

Stumbled across a good litho by Picasso here
the whole development process is seen here

In the end Bull is made with the minimalistic lines.



The development of this bull is quite different from the curvalicious forms of dog owl camel and dove which he did