Ashthakon show brings together promising artists

'Ashthakon’ meaning an octagonal structure, was taken as a name for the group show of art and photography that brought eight artists from different backgrounds together.

Aditi Sinha, Beena Rohila, Deepali, Deepanjali Shekhar, Jaswant Singh Gill, Jasbeer Kaith, Prashant Kaith and Renu Dhiman were the artists from various parts of India that made the private art exhibition happen.

Renu Dhiman, who has been responsible for curating the show is a photographer by profession and exhibited her photos that she captured randomly from streets. Dhiman from Haryana has won many awards for photography, some of which include the Harare International Festival of Arts and Artscape Chandigarh. “My passion is nature and wildlife photography, but I do click whenever I see a moment that is worth it,” says Dhiman.

Dhiman clicked a simple abstract photo of  diyas floating on water which she described as ‘wishes’, as each diya represented a wish made by a person. “Looking at all these diyas should evoke a thought as to how does God fulfill these innumerable wishes,” she says.
Jaswant Singh Gill has been painting and sculpting for the past 35 years. He brought his bronze metal sculptures to the show.

“These sculptures are inspired from labourers. I purposely wanted to devote my work to them as they are treated as insignificant but play a very crucial role in establishment of modern art and architecture all over
the world.”

Gill’s sculptures were small and petite, including that of the labourers having tea, sleeping, talking, resting on bench, going to work in a caravan etc. The sculptures were not abstract but depicted the hardships in the life of an ordinary labour.

Paintings in the show were mostly abstract and mix media on canvas/paper and graphics lithograph on paper, depicting different topics and moods, like a women’s life, adolescence, landscapes etc.

Jasbeer Kaur from Himachal Pradesh brought paintings inspired by music. “I show notations of music through musical instruments. I take the tabla and guitar as the base of inspiration for my composition. Tabla is basically traditional and guitar is western. You can say I bring both to show this fusion through the light and shade in my paintings.” Kaur has not only done abstract but also honed her skills with realist and portrait painting.

Though the artists had little in common with each other, yet the show seemed to be in harmony. Ashthakon is on at Open Palm Court Gallery, India Habitat Centre, till
December 3.