Middle ground
It has become fashionable to present loose group exhibitions as curated to suggest that the selection behind them founded on an interesting concept. Mahua’s “Roots and Shoots” (The Leela Galleria, July 28 to 31) had been first displayed in London.

It claimed to visualise diverse options and solutions adopted by artists who relate to their traditional background or to contemporary situations, otherwise contain both. What one actually saw, however, offered again a more ambitious, but basically similar array of styles and themes that are familiar to the gallery. Allusions to the classic past as well as to current issues and working methods could be observed but mostly on the formalist surface plane. A majority of the show adhered to the safely pleasing middle ground which was predominantly dependent on assimilated modernist precedents and apparently striking ways with imagery which were nevertheless turned into a watered down cuteness.

The rooted address could come as cultured but merely decorative and quite dated use of symbolic diagrams (Dipak Bannerjee) and classic painting motifs (Shipra Bhattacharya, Ramesh Gojrala) directly or in an abstracted form (Achuthan Kudallur), also in references to ancient iconography (Arpana Caur).

On another level, this address was manifested in works growing from early modern inspirations (Ramlal Dhar). With the exception of the sculptures by Gopinath P and Tejendra Baoni, most of the contemporary part of the collection seemed pseudo (Sanatan Dinda) or echoing Mumbai realism (T N Aziz). Apart from the consummate but unoriginal paintings of Shuvaprasanna, Anjali Sapra and Shivani Dugar, the space in-between was dominated by just nice and sugary or loud pieces.

Togetherness
Another large exhibition — “a confluence of art” (Windsor Manor, July 18 to 19, CKP, August 1 to 7) was similar in the co-presence of unrelated idioms and subjects but without aspiring to profundity.

Displayed by Ganges Eternal Arts, a city gallery which functions mainly on the Internet, it brought the work of painters from Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata. Although comprising of contributions disparate in character, it gave an impression of harmony which arose form the overall pleasantness, brightness of colours and largish sizes. This event too aimed at comforting the not so knowledgeable buyer who seeks the assurance of established, cultured but often easy ways. The range on view then was quite predictable.

While Nikhil Ranjan Pal's girl portrait appealed thanks to its mood-full, delicate precision,  a more academic realism in rustic scenes and urban interiors was made vibrant by free, broad strokes, atmospheric by hazy luminosity or by saturated brightness in the canvases of J M S Mani,  K N Ramachandran and R Usha Devi. Such landscapes were either made misty or pattern-like by Soumen Saha and Milind Naik.

Mannered ethnic figuration came in an anachronistic tone from S. Krishnappa and vaguely contemporised from Chandranath Acharya K. and U. Bhaskar Rao. Its mysteriously majestic, Bengali version belonged to Biswajit Saha, Barun Dev, Arindam Dutta and Avisankar Mitra. Elements of abstraction, still-life and figuration mingled to different degrees in the work of Goutam Sarma, Jasu Rawal, Soumitra Kar and Asok Mandal, oscillating between modernist and half-heartedly contemporary aesthetics. Ornate stylising underscored the Egyptian silhouettes of Bhaskar Lahiri.

More serious engagement was seen in the design-base and the amorphousness of Sumana Chowdhury and Prangopal Ghosh from which they draw environmental and bodily-emotive allusions.

A genuine concern informed also the contemporary realism of C F John.

Innocence
Subhash Pal is an artist from Kolkata exhibiting currently at Right Lines (Aug 4 to 17). In his paintings, he wishes to preserve “The Child Within”.

 Although one can empathise with this desire, his works act in a far too literal way to yield evocation. The spectator reads, rather than senses, the crowded but loose juxtapositions of images that signify the fascinations, objects and moods of childhood. Among realistic kites, paper boats, baloons and balls, there are child-like drawings, fable animals, spacecrafts and figures of Charlie Chaplin or Santa Claus as well as symbols of national and religious values, while against the expanses of space inverted young men and depicted in a somewhat vaguely essentialist realistic way.

There is nothing crude in these decently and lightly rendered paintings, yet they touch only the obvious surface of things, being also somewhat too design-oriented and pretty.

Nature design
“Lalbagh, flower power forever” is the title of the small photography exhibition by John Devraj (near the Glass House at Lalbagh, Aug 8 to 15). The artist aims at capturing the pristine spirit of nature against the growing assault on it by industrialisation, etc. Scenes taken around the Bangalore park have greenery, birds and flowers shown in dynamic and atmospheric moments with the intense hues of the sky participating. However, much one may understand the intentions behind the effort, the images appear to act against the same, since the photographer strives to make the organic sights more interesting and forceful by exaggerating their colours in a manner typical to the digital technology. As he dissolves contours over luminescent mists and arranges real motifs into a design-like regularity, the whole becomes loud and artificial, unnatural as a consequence and surface-bound.