In Search of a River - Exhibition of Paintings by Prakash Bal Joshi to mark World Water Day

Indiaart Gallery
Pune, India, 22 Mar 09

In Search of a River - Online Exhibition of Paintings by Prakash Bal Joshi

Website - www.indiaart.com

Online Exhibition from 22 March to 21 April 2009

Exhibition Title – In search of a river

Exhibition of Paintings by Eminent Artist Shri. Prakash Bal Joshi

Artist Profile

Prakash Bal Joshi began drawing the moment he got hold of a chalk and slate and he drew a zero before writing down the first alphabet. Primarily a self taught artist, he spent a long time working on natural forms and through sheer observation and practice, mastered the finer nuances and subtleties of abstract art forms.

As a painter, he is spontaneous and his work is the culmination of deep thought process posing basic fundamental questions regarding his own existence. He switches effortlessly from using a pen to write his inner thoughts and observations to a pencil or a brush to express much more complicated inner turmoil. He has been holding pen and pencil together for more than three decades

Joshi's keen sense of observation also comes from being a veteran Mumbai based journalist who worked with several national publications including The Times of India. Having renowned painter Ara as a guide and father figure, he has developed his own style of expression. His ink pen lines on paper as well as brush strokes on canvas are equally spontaneous and powerful.

Two sharply crafted books, Maitrinichi Goshta ( A Friend's Story) in 1984 and Gateway in 1993,show a sensitive writer grappling with the complexities and contradictions of an urban lifestyle. Both the books are interspersed with thought-provoking sketches .

. His first solo show at Artist's Centre, Mumbai in June 2006, “Gateway” included drawings in ink and abstract paintings based on inner perceptions of nature. Here, landscapes and human figures intermingle to form their own unique shapes and textures. Reflecting an inner turmoil, the paintings basically revolve around the eternal dilemma : who am I and why do I draw.

His work was part of a group show ´Explicit-Implicit” organized at Gallery-G, Maini Sadan - ,Bangalore and received good response . He has been invited by Gallery Vernissage in Osijek city , Croatia, to participate in an exhibition in July 2009 .

His work Igatpuri rains 1995 and Deep Blue have been selected for inclusion in a art book International Contemporary Masters 2009 , to be published by Omma Center of Contemporary Art.

Genesis of the Project

As a child I was almost drowned in a river, experienced absolute darkness and fear of death. Ignoring my loud protests, my father pushed me in a well without any support system and taught me swimming. First river I swam in was Surya on the outskirts of Mumbai city and fell in love with rivers. I have been fascinated with flow and silent music I hear whenever I visit bank of a river. Like life, river flows continuously through different terrains.

As a student, I had read about river Saraswati which disappeared thousands of years ago from the Indian subcontinent. Since then, I have been totally possessed by the concept a vanishing river. Some believe that it is still running at a subterranean level. To my mind who has been a keen observer of nature since my childhood days spent in Igatpuri, a sleepy town in Sahyadri ranges, Saraswati simply disappeared due to climatic changes affecting earth thousands of years ago.

Whenever I saw any river, I used to think of Saraswati and wonder whether the river in front of me will also disappear. Later as my search for the lost river continued even in my dream, I realized that not only Saraswati but several rivers have disappeared from the face of the earth during last couple of centuries.

My work during 2007-08 has dominated my obsession with rivers, especially by my search for Saraswati, and took a fresh dimension and can be seen as an exploration for new perspectives. One day I was traveling in a suburban local train in Mumbai and lights went off and train slowed down. I was stunned to see a dozen faces of co-travelers engrossed in looking at their mobile phones , unaware of darkness around and a blue glow on their faces – was that the flow of disappeared river ? I realized that not only environment changes but the observer who notices subtle changes also change beyond recognition.

I tried to capture that subtle change in “Facebook-2050” painting. One may or may not have a facebook on internet, but every one carries a facebook of known and unknown faces one comes across during life time and keeps a personal record of subtle changes in our own life time.

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Contact: Indiaart Gallery