Ramu Maredu

The immediate impact Ramu Maredu paintings leave upon his audience is his childlike impressions:  construction sites, pillars, hoardings, auto-rickshaws, goats, pigs, cows and other common sights that generally nag the eye and stress the energies in any burgeoning urban landscape. Negating realism of any form of stylization he stands faithful to the modern metamorphosis of urban spaces. Mingled with the urban imagery we spot Mahatma Gandhi and frames of characters of reckoned artists like Thota Vaikuntam and Manjit Bawa. The dichotomy of the mundane and exclusivity brings to the fore the intermingling of economies, societal status, beliefs and followings. The city in Maredu’s paintings represents a jungle of materialism and moral optimism. The route will have to be decided by the viewer who will carry back their experiences and feelings. Nevertheless, the artist is highly inspired by the multifaceted growth of the city as he is conscious that mankind while making great strides, is also failing to maintain the much-needed balance with the environment.

Dawat Satish

Dawat Satish creates social commentaries on his canvas. Applying environmental imagery the artist creates pointers at human fallacies and negligence. He reconstructs social issues that impact contemporary life. Although he applies cheerful imageries like sunflowers and blossoms of various fruits and flower species he synchronizes the mood of darkness and gloom in all his works. 

Besides, social commentaries he also touches upon the animalistic aspect of the Universal spirit/consciousness. With a strong belief in the purity of thoughts/intents, he dismisses any kind of beautification in his art. He says, “My works are not sophisticated and I consciously hinge my art to animism where the larger beauty of ‘love’ connected us all to the universal spirit.”

Harirathan Shinde

Contemporising Indian miniatures is the novel preoccupation of a fairly good number of young artists. Harirathan Shinde belongs to this new genre of art which demands skills, concept and a good dollop of humour. Taking off from the Mughal miniatures the artist composes imagery to curate a dialogue of the opposites. Eschewing the ornate he adopts the characters onto his prints, animals, the flora and fauna to arrive at his aesthetics. Says he, “I always visualise the various elements in my way to alter and recompose them to create a confrontation of the strong against the weak, the rich against the poor, the underdog against the popular and so forth.” Ultimately, my compositions are open invitations for the audience to interpret and absorb the synergies they like.  His four submissions are intaglio prints executed on zinc plates and printed on acid-free paper.