Lalit Gupta
JAMMU, Feb 24: Rakesh Kumar’s exhibition of paintings titled ‘Fragrance of Soil’ which opened at the Master Sansar Chand Gallery at the Kala Kendra, here today, provided an opportunity to art aficionados in the winter capital to view creative artist’s latest works which are to be exhibited at Mumbai in coming month.
The solo-exhibition has on display 41 works that include his latest canvasses, on spot studies of landscapes of Srinagar and Bhadarwah and also demonstration works executed in oil, dry pastels and water colors.
In order to provide an opportunity to spectators to have an overview of artist’s 15 year creative journey, Rakesh Kumar has also put on display some of his old works that mirror his academic training at Jammu’s Institute of Music & Fine Arts (IMFA) and later at JJ School, Mumbai.
A recipient of AIFACS and Sate awards for best paintings, and presently teaching in IMFA, Srinagar, Rakesh Kumar is one of few working artist’s of the State who are recognized as a talented contemporary painter. A well known colorist and an able heir of Jammu school of abstraction associated with late Vijay Gupta, former principal IMFA, Rakesh Kumar’s semi-abstract works though based on external stimuli like surrounding landscape are autonomous visual constructs. It is painterly quality of handling of various tones of colors that play hide and seek with underlying geometry of shapes in his works which demands an informed empathy on part of spectators.
Talking about his works Rakesh Kumar said that it were the colors which give substance to the world as we sees it. My works are reflections of my journeys to discover my inner self in the world caught up limitation of time and space. As an artist, I am trying to look beyond the given and the immediate to feel the timeless and universal rhythms in man-made as well as natural world.
The three-day exhibition inaugurated by Shantmanu, IAS, Chief Electoral Officer, and attended by prominent visual artists, will remain open till 26 Feb, 2016.
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