Shades of Life

Wishing all my readers a very happy and prosperous new year 2012...

This year for me begins with an exhibition "Shades of Life" curated by Ms.Varsha Munot at The Renaissance Art Studio, Pune. This is the first time that I am showing my paintings along with my daughter Bhawana's paintings... This is a moment to feel proud of her.

Below are a few images of my paintings being displayed at the gallery along with the invitation...

Cheers!!!
Note : A review of the exhibition is available on Pune Art Review here Excerpt below (If you know who has written the review pls write about it in comments below or mail verDOTpreeti@gmail.com)
"

Suresh Choudhary’s paintings immediately stun your senses. They are haunting & mysterious. Each piece in the series is so dramatic, it takes your breath away. The works are all done in oil on canvas. The artist has skillfully given a 3D effect, making the paintings come alive. Each work is done in shades of a single colour. They are dark colours yet the overall effect is magnificently bright; powerfully depicting landscapes, castles & fortresses. All are engulfed in a mystical fog which captures your curiosity. You instantly feel a strong desire to become a part of the scene, to enter & unravel the magical world before you. The small details of each scene are done so subtly but they are integral to the idea being expressed.

The artist’s talent & experience reverberates. It encompasses you as you enter & you can feel the energy emanating in the room.

A huge thank you to the curator, a fabulous show. Pune needs this kind of quality art to move up in the echelons of the Indian art scene.

Investment quotient:

Choudhary’s work is a bargain at the prices quoted by the gallery. All are in the range of INR25-40,000. I would strongly advise an investment in a piece of his work from this show."

A Talk on TV

This was an interview taken during my exhibition at Alliance Française de Bhopal.

Wanted to share this here... 

Enjoy!!!

Condolence to Hussain Sahab.

When I heard the news of Hussain Sahab.. I felt very bad. India has lost a great artist. I admire his ability to paint, even when he was surrounded by so many controversies.


I was just recollecting my old times which I had spent with him. He was a regular visitor the any exhibition and always encouraged the young artists. I remember during one of my exhibition in at Jahangir Art Gallery, Mumbai he had visited my exhibition and spent quite a lot of time looking at my horse paintings. 


I am attaching one of old memories with him here... 

Right to left Sachida Nagdev, Hussain Sahab, Suresh Choudhary (Me) and Waman Thakre

Dhumravarna Ganesh - one of my older paintings

Came across one of my older painting of Shri Ganesh in his  incarnation as "Dhumravarna"

" Dhumraketu, also referred as Dhumravarna, is the incarnation of Hindu God Ganesha that will appear at the end of the Kali Yuga."

Recent exhibition at Aliance Franciase de Bhopal

I just finishes a 10 days exhibition at Aliance Francaise de Bhopal. I really like the way people of Bhopal enjoy and appreciate art. Bhopal is a city for art and culture.

Below are some paintings displayed in the exhibition.

Autobio-"audio"-graphy (organized by Kala Samay and Chavi Samvad)

 Few days back i was invited to talk about myself and my own journey and its various milestones in between and how life took its twists and turns. This was about an hour long session with approx half hour  of my monologue. The rest half i devoted to the question and answer sessions. They have recorded the session hopefully some clips were aired too. I have requested  to get some clips for uploading on net. 

An observation of one of the person  (Mr Devilal Patidar) was that in my paintings the surface becomes a very important part of the the painting. .. he had observed that I paid particular attention to developing the surface texture of the painting. Of course it is true to a major extent. 

With landscapes  most of my paintings have a 3D surface because of using thick impasto with knife and then working over it with colour. There are a few horses and ganesh that i have done in that manner . I do  pay particular attention, to the way the painting surface develops. I like to have finesse in my work. blending tones into one another and thats what i enjoy doing. 

1975 year of Jugalbandi of Painting with Prose

In the year 1975 a friend of mine thought about having a jugalbandi of  Poetry  and  Paintings  

The result was paintings based on poetry by Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh's poetry 'Andhere Mein ' . The reason this poet was picked was that the pictorial aspect of his verses was very prominent  (as also evident in lines below). The full text is available in KavitaKosh here

बाहर शहर के, पहाड़ी के उस पार, तालाब...

अँधेरा सब ओर,

निस्तब्ध जल,

पर, भीतर से उभरती है सहसा

सलिल के तम-श्याम शीशे में कोई श्वेत आकृति

कुहरीला कोई बड़ा चेहरा फैल जाता है

और मुसकाता है,

पहचान बताता है,

किन्तु, मैं हतप्रभ,

नहीं वह समझ में आता।

One sample painting (this is a scanned B/W image - the best i could manage )

There is also a writeup based on my limited understanding during those times. and a much youthful me :)  

Note: Later I also worked on poetry by Shamsher. but that may be some other time.  

Brushing my blog

There were countless things that happened in past 6 months. Some of them related to art (Like getting the veteran artist award from AIFACS in New Delhi) to Art camp in Ujjain and few more some such event. Its unfortunate that i was not able to post stuff and got totally carried away in the flux of daily hum-drum.  There is one thing I know for sure. Blogging should be  like brushing your teeth. (Everyday). 


So lets quickly put the  past behind and move forward. 

Sometime back there was a disscussion about  Artists should/should not represent their times. Afterall how would you find them contemporary if they do not do that. Think of the caves of Bhimbetka  they do tell a story. or do look at Guernica by Picasso

I think there are artists who are like that but I do not  find my paintings having any semblance to the present times, they seem to belong to another category. I find the inscape of timelessness more alluring than the landscape of present times.


 A few lines I have wrote in my diary would like to share.

अनंत फैलाव के साथ रहना
अंदर और बाहर भी
एक आदत सी हो गयी है

जीवन में शुमार है पूरी तरह से

शरीर तो नश्वर है
और में चिर दूरस्थ गामी
अपनी क्रातियो में हमेशा रहूँगा

मेरी क्रातियाँ क्या पाती हैं
इससे महत्वपूर्णा यह है की
मैं अपने आपको को कृतियों में
नये नये रूपों में पाता हूँ

एक ही जीवन में विभिन्न फलकों पर
अनेकों जीवन जीना प्रफुल्लित करता है

On a happy note:  my youngest son (Yatin) will be getting married sometime soon (hopefully this year), Everybody in family is quite cheerful. and as expected my younger son's phone bill is sky rocketing :)  

Bharat Bhawan Bhopal, Last day at exhibition

Thanks to Bharat Bharat Bhawan for organizing this wonderful exhibition of my works and giving me a chance to meet so many people.

The one month exhibition has come to an end. All the while time has flied. Especially since I had an 

almost parallel exhibition in Delhi as well. 

Location : Bharat Bhawan, Bhopal
Date : 13 Mar 2010
Occasion: Last day of 1 month exhibition. 




From Left to Right 

Myself- Suresh choudhary, Rahim Gutti, Suhas Nimbalkar and Sachida Nagdev 

Exhibition in New Delhi

Dhoomimal Art Centre in Delhi (Connaught Place)

The present exhibition is already underway in Bhopal till next month 13th , a totally  new set of my works will be on display in Delhi from 5th March.

Dhoomimal Art Centre will be hosting this exhibition. My Profile in their website is here
Have sent the box of works yesterday and its a big relief now that the ball is out of my court.


5 march 2010 - 6 30 pm - Just like with past exhibition This exhibition is also open for online viewing.
                                         Just click here http://sureshchoudhary.com/_img/   


For those who can physically visit here is the address 

Dhoomimal Art Centre, 

8A Connaught Place, 

Inner Circle, New Delhi-110001

Date : 5th March 2010- 17th March (Sunday Closed)

Thanks for the support. 
-S

online exhibition

A lot of you have received the URL for viewing online exhibition.

http://sureshchoudhary.com/_img/

Unfortunately there is some minor hiccup wherein a lot of text error seems to be generated. (debug mode)

Right people are looking into the issue and they should be able to correct it asap. This is our first attempt to have an online exhbition as well. SO please bear with us.

I will update the blog as soon as it is up and running.

-----------------------
11:10 pm 14th Feb - The images are being reuploaded.
------------------------
3 PM IST 15th Feb - Images are uploaded.

                                       The images are uploaded in picasaweb as well. If the initial link gives problem you can try the secondry source by clicking here

Pls let me know in comments if still any issues.

Exhibition in Bharat Bhavan Feb 2010

This is my first post of 2010 so Happy New Year folks.....  and some news from my end.

I have been invited by Bharat Bhavan to conduct an exhibition of my works on their 28th Anniversary. It feels good to be appreciated. This exhibition will start on 13th of Feb and will be on display for 1 whole month.

Bharat Bhavan is an independent trust created by the Legislature of the State of Madhya Pradesh. The Building architecture was conceptualized by Charles Correa. Bharat Bhavan is home to a lot of activities around  not just limiting itself to Art it including Music and performing arts as well.

You can know more about Bharat Bhavan on wikipedia here or on its own site.

I would consider the emergence of Bharat Bhavan to be synonymous.with the development of Indian art in the international market.

Presently I am busy tying a lot of loose ends It is a HUGE space that is available for display. and I will need to gather my works from around different places. I have  yet to decide on theme and  what to showcase.

Will keep you Posted  ...

Recent Abstract works - Poetry in color

                 जाओ और कह दो;

अब में तस्वीरें अक्स के

                       बहुत दूर चला आया हूँ.

उड़ते रंगों को सहेजकर,

                    मौसम तलाश करता हूँ.

पेशानी की लकीरें;

                   बिखेरा करता हूँ,

This is one of the recent abstract work (poetry in colour series),  Which  prompted me to write these lines

PS : Compare this work with the other Poetry in color series works there is a marked shift in my color pallet.

Small Writeup in hindi

दरदरी जमी पर,

अनगढ़ सी खीच दी है,

एक लकीर,

जैसे

रिश्ता बनाकर चला आया हूँ

कॅन्वस पर.

छीताराते हुए रंग

सहेजने के चक्कर में,

और बिखर गये हैं.

क्या यही है तस्वीर मेरी?

जाओ और कह दो;

अब में तस्वीरें अक्स के

 बहुत दूर चला आया हूँ.

उड़ते रंगों को सहेजकर,

मौसम तलाश करता हूँ.

पेशानी की लकीरें;

 बिखेरा करता हूँ,

तकदीर भुलाने के लिए.

बमुश्किल बिकती है तस्वीर कोई;

रसूले-पाक ने क्या किस्मत दी है,

भूंखे तो नहीं मरता हूँ.

बस रंगों को बिखेरा करता हूँ,

और तन्हाई बयान करता हूँ.

ज़ख़्मों को तारपीन और वार्निश से नुमाया करता हूँ.

                                                         - सुरेश चौधरी (९ जन १०, भोपाल )

An offbeat work from my private collection.

An offbeat work of mine that i love. (its in my private collection) There are very few I remember that explore man-woman-animal relationship. It was done in 1990

One more year of Bhopal Gas Tragedy - 25th year this time

One more year of Gas tragedy has elapsed. and this time we will be having its 25th Year.

It pains to even remember those moments. As I mentioned in my earlier posts here. It has been horrible. Just imagine that the people still have not got what was due to them.

As I mentioned in my earlier posts about my writeup. I wanted to put a decently typed version for all of my readers. Unfortunately, most typists of Bhopal only have English Keyboards. Eventually I did fish a guy in Old City who did type it for me and took print outs. (God bless him) . But before he could give me the soft copy his computer went down with Virus. Even second day he was unable to recover his data and that soft copy. Hence Just posting the pics of those printouts for those interested in reading my personal experience of those days in Hindi. (Its english translation will take some time to come) .

Although my medium is colors and not text still I am hopeful you are able to appreciate the hindi version . Attached here (6MB - 3 pics )

Studio at present

Big Black and Whilte canvas at the right hand was hanging in my drawing room since quite long time. Felt like making a few more works on the theme.

Do you notice that there is a tiny speck of red on that black and white painting.

Last time I was sitting with an astrologer he mentioned my Kundali has something that points to this behavior. India is incredible. People fish out relationships from strange places.

Perhaps its men's quest to find meaning in everything. otherwise how do you explain my behavior. I just can not finish a painting which does not have at least a tiny speck of RED in it.

Meetup on 13th Nov at my Studio

Yesterday had invited a group of artists to my studio to showcase my works. I sincerely hope to make it a yearly event.

Bhopal has really matured in all these years as an Art hub. At least now its not very difficult to find serious creative artists. Something that was very difficult say before Bharat Bhawan put Bhopal on the art map for India.

I believe I have refused to be a slave to style. and have experimented with various techniques. Size has never been a hinderance So you will find a small 12x8 inch work along side a few huge 72x 108.

Ganesha , Horses, Wave, poetry in Colour and Landscapes are already what you might be familier with, Of all these works which are not in the website are Benares Series, which is very close to my heart

Horses on the run ..

have been working on a few horses. Here is a work in progress.

Bhopal Gas Tragedy - an old writeup

Those who know India might be aware that Diwali/Dussehra is the time of the year when we do a thorough cleanup of entire home.. Its a messy affair so lets get straight to point.

I found an old writeup while doing the yearly cleanup. This should be around the some time after the Bhopal gas disaster. I still remember the melancholy hidden in every stroke. Reading it, felt bittersweet.

The write up (in my mother tongue - Hindi is definately better) contains the similar thoughts i had crudely translated in my older post (dec2 2008). Do follow the link if you want to see the paintings that ensued.