Landscapes that urge one to look beyond the routine

It is usually exquisite vistas and impressive scenes from nature that move the human heart that landscapes in painting depict. However, an ongoing exhibition in Gurugram presents landscapes that drive the viewers to look beyond their regular lives. Aptly titled Looking Beyond, the show has over 40 works by 28 artists, on various mediums including oils, acrylics, new media, photography, and sculptures.

“This exhibition of landscape painting and sculptures centres on natural forms that reflect a very crucial development in art, where the human figures of a work of art are set in the broader environment they live in and interact with. This is something we see in the narrative landscapes of China and Japan, and even in our own miniatures of the Mughal school,” curator Suneet Chopra explains.

On display at the show, remounted from its previous exhibition at the India Habitat Centre, are works by artists GR Santosh, Satish Chandra, Bikash Poddar, George Martin, Murali Nagapuzha, Shiv Lal Saroha, Tanya Mehta, Seema Kohli, Umika Mediratta, Sanjay Bhattacharya. In each of the works, the imperial figure is central to the composition but the landscape elements work as a vibrant background.

An “alternative approach” is another feature at the exhibition, as formal qualities of nature take precedence. “The alternative approach is to highlight the formal qualities of nature and present them in different styles ranging from the realism of Kaustav Jyoti Das Gupta’s seascapes and the flowering trees of Surya Prakash, to varying degrees of stylistic distortion in the works of Paresh Maity, Ompal Sansanwal, Shabir Hussain Santosh, Zahoor Zargar, K Jagjit Singh, and Niranjan J,” reads the curatorial note. Artworks by renowned modernist FN Souza also find space in the exhibition.

Works by artists Paresh Maity (top) and Gurudas Shenoy (above), on display at the exhibition