A renewed spirit to inspire art lovers in Mumbai

350 artists from all around India are participating in this edition of the Mumbai Art Fair and displaying 3500 pieces of artwork, including seascapes, landscapes, rural and urban scenes, portraits, wildlife art, and abstract pieces. 100 air-conditioned booths can be found on the ground floor of the Discovery of India building. In addition to creating sales opportunities while increasing awareness, this also gives new and budding artists confidence as they receive input from their peers!

Mumbai Art Fair, which has a reputation for continuously supporting hundreds of artists each year, gives them a venue to show, an enlarged network of art buyers, and more exposure for their work. From May 5 through May 7, the 4th edition of the Mumbai Art Fair will be open to visitors at the Nehru Centre in Worli, Mumbai.

Many art galleries are taking part in the Mumbai Art Fair this year, including the curators.art, Gallery Beyond, Bouquet of Art Gallery, and Greyscale in Mumbai; Artecious Gallery, Aura Planet in Delhi; B G Sharma Studio Arts and Narendra Arts & Handicrafts in Udaipur; and Maryat Art Gallery in Dubai.

Rajendra Patil, Founder Mumbai Art Fair shared, “Mumbai Art Fair has always aimed to create a stable platform for all kinds of art to fulfill passion investment need of art buyers and lovers in Mumbai. By consistently bringing over 3500 art works and wide range of artists and art galleries from across the country and globally, Mumbai Art Fair has grown steadily into a much loved art hub which caters to all tastes and inclinations in the art world”.

The most talented artists who have carved out a place for themselves in the art world are on display in this edition, and they include Monica Ghule, Antra Shrivastava, Ridhi Parekh, Dev Mehta, Kanishka Mehra, Akshata Shetty, Kumar Gaikwad, Ghanshyam Gupta, Shaymal Mukherjee, Gautam Patole, and Kanchan Mahante. At the art fair, you can also see a vibrant mash-up of figurative paintings by Nandini Verma, Suman Dabholkar, and Surendran Kunju Pillai.

The abstract painting considered simple yet most difficult as it demands heightened sensitivity for composition and for colours; artists Gaurav Dagar, Ashish Kamble, Savya Jain, Satyajit Shergill, Suhani Gabriel, Jayshree Bhagat, Sonali Korde, Atul Bhalerao and Prakash Bal Joshi showcasing in the art fair chose this genre to express themselves whereas Rashmi Pote, Neha Thackeray, Wilson Souza, Anusha Adabala’s semi-abstract works will surely leave the viewer grappling with clues to read and re-read it. Artists Krish Nandi, Ena Tandon, Beena Surana, Om Thadkar, Nemesha Gadhoke, Dr Rajni Toppo exhibiting at the art fair works in monochromatic tints, mostly black and white just concentrating on elements such as composition, value, lighting and form.

Even now, landscape paintings—whether abstract, flowery, romantic, pastoral, including seasonal springs, structures and buildings, waterscapes, or cityscapes—remain the most alluring subject matter for painters. At the Mumbai Art Fair, there are many landscapes of all these varieties. Mixed media works by late artists Prabhu Joshi, Janhavi Bide, Pratibha Kahnna, Sriparna Sinha, Shubhashis Mandal, Rahul Naskar, Mridul Chandra, lyrical landscapes by Meenakshi Bahuguna, Riddhi Shah, Preyas Keluskar, specimens of architectural landscapes & river-front temple landscape by Rashmi Sharma, Shivani Banerjee, Seema Sharma Shah, and Surreal kind of landscape by Samaira Paul are going to attract nature loving visitors in the art fair.

There is sense of freedom & playfulness seen in the work of Mahua Ray, Nalinakshi Suvarna, whereas different level of sensuousness reverberates through the works of Meenakshi Shukla, Shweta Chaturvedi, Vaishnavi M and Jay Jhaveri; they render different treatment to their female protagonist.

The figurative paintings by Vaishali Kale, Kanchan Mulay, Rajendra Ponna, Alcohol Ink Paintings by Jenaifer Daruwalla, Resin & Epoxy work by Shradha Hirawat, and fusion of folk style with contemporary times is seen through the works of Bhavika Mangnani.

Art has always been a means to express belief and devotion. Religious faith has inspired some of the most impressive and wondrous works of art ever produced. The artists expressing different beliefs and faiths in various styles and mediums in the art fair include Sangram Naik, Indu Gaur, Neha Jhunjhunwala, Riya Vaishnav, Shaily Verma, Sonali Surana, Kailas Kale, Gargi Devgude, Vaishali Singh, Deepal Bhat and Alpana Dangi whereas experimentation with Tantra art forms is seen in the works of Monalisa Parikh.

The visual beats or rhythm is something difficult to explain but our eyes anyhow spot it in art; colours can convey rhythm, lines can produce rhythm and there can be a rhythm in style, technique, brush strokes and even subject for that matter! What binds the artworks of Gautam Bansal, Megha Soni, Amrita Sharma and Pallavi Singh is the one or other form of rhythm they have employed through their paintings! The viewers need to take a second look at each of their works. In a similar way, what categorizes the artwork together by artist Lakshya Gora and Priya Kataria is the style, the way they have employed form, colour, and composition! So different but still connected together!

The highly symbolic works of Praggya Saamor, Mala Doshi, Praveena Parepalli, Saleel Wagh, Vasanthakumar, Saudamini Sharma, Goutam Das, Krishna Bhardwaj are representations of our diverse socio-cultural identities. Few Art Gallery remain at forefront when it comes to promotion of Indian traditional art even in this era of modern art. Narendra Arts & Handicrafts & B G Sharma Studio from Udaipur, and ArtSage from Mumbai are showcasing exquisite Pichwai paintings whereas OPS Art Gallery, New Delhi is presenting entire gamut of Indian traditional arts which include Pichwai, Kalamari, Warli, Gond, Kangra and Kalighat paintings. The few other artists experimenting with various traditional art styles exhibiting in the art fair include Dhanya Namboothiri, Meena Ananthanarayanan, Umashankar Shah, Harinath, Neha Kamble, Jagruti Thakker, Anagha Shrihari Kulkarni, Ranjana Kumar and Premal Shah.

Every artist constantly work on their own subject, style, colours repeatedly, experimenting day and night just to discover what makes a piece of art look like ‘their own’ or rather they discover their own self! It happens when something ‘unique’ of theirs appears in their art! This ‘unique element’ in the form of colour palettes, overall painting style, texture, subject, specific technique or some ‘unknown factor’ enters their art and its eureka moment; artists Jyoti Sharma, Aruna Mukund Raj, Sudha Ramkrishnan, Meena Raghavan, Shweta Pujari and Nagesh Devkar, seems have reached that stage!

The most challenging part of animal, bird or wildlife art is not only to depict animals in perfect anatomical proportion & perspective, but also capture their inner innocence or fierceness and artists Jalpa Patel, Agastya Rao, Amrita Basu, Nanda Pathak, Parvathi Ramanthan, Prateek Kushwaha, Ujjayni Pawar, Ayesha Memon, Balaji Dhotre, and Samaira Kumbare are seen doing same through their animal art displayed at the Mumbai Art Fair.

The other artists exhibiting at the art fair include J Selva, Bhavna Seth, Goonjan Jain, Namita Panchal, Sanjeevani Bhoir, Shweta Agarwal, Amita Dand, Leena Mathur, Pradnya More and Roshni Kavina have tried their own ways of expressing that which is innate and experienced mingled with a touch of memories from their own lives.