JOIN USIf you are planning to visit UB City anytime this week, there’s much to look forward to. The various walls within the premises have taken on a different form altogether, with brilliant hues and meaningful depictions adorning them each.
As part of the seventh edition of contemporary art festival ‘Art Bengaluru’, over 30 national and international artists have exhibited their works across the mall. And it’s not just confined to paintings. There are artistically shot photographs, creative installations and beautiful sculptures that will hold one’s attention.
A graffiti wall, created by Marko93 from Paris, welcomes one at the entrance of UB City. And then there are around 150 artworks all across.
Photographer Daan Oude Elferink from The Netherlands calls his passion a ‘crazy hobby’ that has now become his profession. He travels around the world, exploring abandoned buildings and translating them into photographs. “I’ve visited castles with family photo albums in closets covered with dust; hotels with bedsheets still on and a farmer house with soup on the table. It seems as if people dropped everything and just left, never to return again. Such places trigger my imagination and I’ve taken pictures of the beauty of decay,” says the artist who hasn’t received any professional training in photography.
He adds that he has gone through sewers and climbed over rooftops to be able to get in and out of these places without breaking anything. “I want to show these neglected places to the world and am glad that people are loving my photographs,” he says.
Nele Martens from Germany lives in Auroville near Puducherry. A mixed media painter and sculptor, she has displayed two mobile sculptures and three acrylic paintings on canvas. “The sculptures depict the balance between the two main energies in the world — gravity and centrifugal force. We are always balanced by these two forces without even being aware,” she says. The pieces are in constant movement due to the wind and their structure creating a meditative effect, she highlights.
Two of her paintings show a circular movement, showing the association with the cosmos, the earth and a mother’s womb. “The ‘seed of light’ painting was done by me after a cyclonic storm. It shows the rebirth of light and life after destruction,” shares Nele.
A look at Israeli metal artist Shay Peled’s colourful wall sculptures is a visual treat. “For me, the meaning of the work is most important and I’ve concentrated on namely three themes — hope, love and ‘think different’,” he elaborates.
Henk Van Putten has also put up some works in metal, wood and stone.
Artist Sharad Haksar from Chennai, an advertising and fashion photographer, always wanted to do travel photography and has captured frames at several exotic locations. Printed on archival canvas, the photos resemble paintings and one cannot easily tell the difference. City-based artist Suresh P has presented paintings inspired by nature; which he terms as ‘contemporary abstraction’. “While ‘Natura’ and ‘Touchdown’ are acrylic paintings on canvas, ‘Structured Dimensions’ and ‘Sinuous Maze’ are oil works on canvas,” says Suresh.
His wife Shashi Bharati has created acrylic paintings on canvas that depict the various emotions a woman experiences and expresses in the different phases of her life — as a young girl, daughter, wife and mother.