Art Heritage is a gallery known to take risks. It’s a space where artists, authors and designers are encouraged to try out new ideas and explore concepts. Since opening in 1977, its dual mandate of education and commerce has provided Delhi audiences an opportunity to not only learn about art, but also own works that resonate with them.

On the Threshold of Time is an annual exhibition, now in its ninth year, which promotes young and emerging talent from across India. The works that are selected have either been spotted by us at the various colleges of art or brought to our notice by the artists themselves. This year’s edition, entitled Immersion, explores the engagement by 7 emerging artists – Avijit Dutta, Gautam Rahul, Jasmi Paladiya, Neeraj Singh Khandka, Prabhakar Singha, Susmita Chowdhury and Tahsin Akhtar – with the world around them.

Neeraj Singh Khandka and Jasmi Paladiya’s begin from a place of introspection – Khandka’s incisive powers of observation of the evolving city around him and his interaction and response to it are evident in large canvases.  While COVID times resulted in the shrinking of his world to the four walls of his house, he used the opportunity to re-engage and adapt to his environment, producing prints and canvases dense in details. Jasmi’s sculptures and watercolors withdraw even further within, analyzing and evaluating her cultural roots, wherein the five natural elements organically combine to give birth to the material and content of her work. Susmita Chowdhury’s dreamlike metascapes, with intermingling figures and objects visualize pure emotion and sensations.  Her works draw on past experiences and memories, and like the medium she uses – watercolour combined with gum – concepts amalgamate into flowing lyrical compositions. Many of her works also speak to societal norms and predilections.

Rather than focusing on the self, Avijit Dutta is preoccupied with the attachment we have to inanimate objects and places. Central to his work is a simple carry bag, which conveys themes of anonymity, constraint, limitation, but also a space to hide within it messages of hope and aspiration. Prabhakar Singha projects messages of positivity in a metropolis of stress and anxiety – uncovering smiles embedded just beneath the surface. Gautam Rahul’s drawings and sculptures unabashedly shed all preconceptions.  Not only are figures in his work set against barren and sparse landscapes, they are denuded. Transitioning from a two dimensional surface into sculpture permits Rahul’s work to re-contextualize itself within the environment in which it is placed. Finally, Tahsin Akhtar takes a step beyond sculpture into the realm of installation and digital work, focusing on the ordinary and mundane, manipulating objects and natural phenomena with digital effects and projection mapping, thereby infusing them with new perspective and meaning.

Taken together works in Immersion remind one that an artist’s journey begins with the self – looking within or looking outward by commenting on what is immediately around him. It is with such perspectives that worldviews and narratives evolve and develop that afford us, the audience, a glimpse into the artistic process.

Art Heritage is pleased to welcome visitors to the gallery to view the individual works in-person, while adhering to strict COVID-related safely protocols.

For any query please email us at ahg@artheritagegallery.com

or call/WhatsApp us at +91 98186 96193

Date

24 Aug - 30 Sep 2022

Artists

Avijit Dutta, Jasmi Paladiya, Prabhakar Singha, Gautam Rahul, Neeraj Khandka, Tahsin Akhtar, Susmita Chowdhury

Medium

Paintings, Prints and Sculptures