NABAKISHORE CHANDA

NABAKISHORE CHANDA : Kolkata

The image of a woman is predominant in almost all his paintings. "Woman is genesis.The mother, the wife, the daughter. Life for me begins and ends with a woman." -- Nabakishore Bengal's patachitra in vegetable colours is what influenced him most. Though the paintings are mainly steeped in rural milieu, the occasional urban study captures the angst as well as the bland anonymity of city life with equal impact.

ARPANA CAUR

ARPANA CAUR: Delhi based artist

Arpana Caur, is a Delhi based Contemporary Indian Artist . Since the beginning of her career Arpana's main concern has been the girl child, condition of women and growing violence in India. She has been consistently figurative. She also does printmaking. It is feminine and feminist in its perspective, with portraits of women placed in a contemporary urban context. The erotic is downplayed in favor of the sturdy. in her paintings, "There is no hint of an expressive sexuality; woman and nature are both symbiotically tied in a circle of perceived threat and uncertain renewal."

The other major concerns in her work include time, life and death, the environment, and the violence of man on man (like Hiroshima, the Partition of India, and the 1984 massacre of the Sikhs). She has created several large non commercial murals on subjects relating to the environment in Delhi, Bangalore, and Hamburg. Caur's work

responds to the surroundings and events of her life, from the crowded Patel Nagar of her childhood to events such as the rape of Maya Tyagi and the widows of the Chasnala mining disaster.Caur's subjects remain firmly rooted in the quotidian world of the woman, showing women engaged in commonplace acts such as daydreaming or typing.

The repeated motif of clothing in Caur's work both confirms and subverts the traditional picture of women.

YUSUF ARAKKAL

YUSUF ARAKKAL: kerala Arakkal's paintings are singularly expressionistic in style. In them one could trace the artist's "deep concern for man and society. Set against a dark, oppressive background are the faceless figures of ordinary people expressing brooding loneliness and despair brought on by a society obsessively drawn towards material success where ordinary people have no place".He has done many works in different media, canvases, sculptures with emphasis on tiger conservation.

DR. NORMAN LOUIS GUIDO

DR. NORMAN LOUIS GUIDO: Banglore based artist His art works are original, painted from imagination and extremely unique, his figures speak with their bodies. His works are three dimensional, displaying depth and done with imaginative usage of light and shade. Another outstanding feature of his works is the masterful combination of vibrant colours depicting Indian Society in Passionate and powerfully moving original themes.

SHEELA GOWDA

SHEELA GOWDA: Bangalore

Bangalore artist Sheela Gowda, who uses unconventional materials like cow dung, ash and hair to make sculptures. One of Gowda's most well-known works is an ash sculpture titled 'Collateral' which was made by burning incense on mesh frames to produce a landscape that looks ravaged by war. She has also used tar drums and tarpaulins in another work . The artist's integration of tactile elements threads, hair, traditional kumkum dyes, patterns, weaving techniques, the imperceptible attention to meticulous detail may provoke an instinctual interpretation within a material tradition of craft and textile making. Yet, to do so would inevitably short circuit the wider meaning of Gowda's practice that transposes these elements into social objects and practices located within a network of production and distribution framed in relation to India's socio-political legacy.