India Art Fair: Advisory Selections

Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran at Jhaveri Contemporary

Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran is a Sydney-based sculptor and ceramist who creates new-age idols that combine elements drawn from his Hindu and Christian cultural heritage.

His polychromatic sculptures recall guardian figures in Indian mythology books as well as sculptures present on temples across the country.

Nithiyendran's work is held in various public collections including The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney and the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, while his first major public artwork was recently installed at the entrance of HOTA Gallery, a new gallery on Australia's Gold Coast.

Ganesh Haloi, Untitled (2015). Gouache on handmade paper. 46.99 x 82.55 cm. Courtesy Akar Prakar.

Ganesh Haloi at Akar Prakar

Born in Mymensing, now in Bangledesh, Ganesh Haloi relocated to Calcutta in 1950 shortly after the partition of India.

Much of his early work was gleaned from nature and landscapes—a direction attributed to the displacement and feelings of nostalgia experienced by the artist and many others in the wake of the partition.

Produced in 2015, Untitled represents the more abstract work Ganesh produced in his later years, in which remnants of landscapes and architecture are reduced to subtle forms.

Sosa Joseph at Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke

Kochi-based Sosa Joseph is a contemporary Indian artist recognised for her loose, figurative oil paintings of everyday life.

Earlier this year, Galerie Mirchandani + Steinrueck hosted a solo exhibition of the artist's paintings, which revolved around everyday life along the River Pamba, where she grew up.

'In these recent paintings . . . memories and dreams, struggles and survival, are rooted in the particular as much as they are framed by the common denominator of home', writes Ocula Magazine.

Mahesh Baliga at Project 88

This exquisite small-scale painting by Mahesh Baliga extends the artist's recent body of work, some of which is on view in his solo exhibition at David Zwirner in London—his first outside India.

Born in Karnataka in southwest India, Baliga's intricate works depict scenes from daily life, with a focus on overlooked moments, specifically memories and moments of personal loss.

Synthesising Post-Impressionist palettes with the detail achieved in Persian miniature painting, Baliga's casein tempera works seamlessly marry Western and Eastern visuals.

Lancelot Ribeiro at Grosvenor Gallery

Ribeiro's journey to a career in painting did not take a natural course. Born in Mumbai, the artist came to Britain in 1950 to study accountancy—a plan that was quickly thwarted when he began attending life drawing classes at London's Central St Martins.

A stint in India's National Service followed, before he was back in London exhibiting full-time. Landscape with Spires was one of Ribeiro's first paintings upon moving permanently to London in 1962.

While Ribeiro created a large body of figurative and abstract works throughout his career, landscapes and the use of oil paint were synonymous with this period of his life.

On this theme, Ribeiro explained, 'None of these landscapes are of actual places but a sort of collective experience'.

Anju Dodiya at Chemould Prescott Road

Mumbai-based Anju Dodiya condenses explorations of her inner psyche into self-portraits rendered in watercolour and charcoal.

Graduating from the Sir JJ School of Art, Mumbai in 1968, her work has placed her among the most prominent artists of her generation in India today.

Vadehra's works sit in major collections in both India and abroad, including the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi and the Art Institute of Chicago, among others.

In her Curated Selection for Ocula Advisory, gallerist and collector Roshini Vadehra cites Anju Dodija's 2004 watercolour, Hug, as the first, and most cherished, artwork she ever bought.

Manisha Parekh at Jhaveri Contemporary

Born in Gujarat and raised in New Delhi, Manisha Parekh draws from Indian craft and textile traditions to create her ethereal abstractions.

Receiving her formal training from M.S. University in Baroda, Parekh went on to receive her MFA at London's Royal College of Art in 1993. The geometric draftsmanship of her former tutor Nasreen Mohammedi is present as an influence, albeit integrated into gestural, organic ink forms.

Parekh was one of the founding members of Khoj—a prolific non-profit arts organisation championing the development of contemporary art practice in India.

Krishna Reddy at Experimenter

Krishna Reddy is heralded globally for his pioneering efforts in the field of printmaking.

An apprentice under Henry Moore while a student at London's Slade School of Art, Reddy continued his studies in Paris where he co-directed the famed Atelier 17—a hotbed for modernist stalwarts by the likes of Picasso, Joan Miró, and Alberto Giacometti, among others.

It was here that Reddy developed new techniques in printing, including the process of etching designs onto printing plates before transferring them to the desired surface, as seen in Dream (1950).

In 1976, Reddy moved to New York, taking up the position of Director of Graphics and Printmaking at New York University until his retirement.

Jitish Kallat at Nature Morte

Jitish Kallat's multidisciplinary practice—traversing installation, painting, and sculpture—zooms in on his immediate surroundings in Mumbai and out to the cosmic horizon.

Epicycles incorporates the technology of lenticular photography into assemblage sculpture.

Culling images from Edward Steichen's 1955 group photography exhibition at MoMA, Kallat weaves images of events occurring within his studio to create free-standing portals of ephemerality.

Kallat's work has been exhibited globally, including the Serpentine Galleries and Tate Modern in London; Arken Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen; and Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, among others.