ESPACE 

Online exhibition curated by Sreekrishnan KP

The pandemic has disrupted everything that was once considered normal. The way we view and consume art has also changed and Kerala is quick to adapt to newer modes of showcasing art. There have been several online shows, encouraging the viewers to interact online. Espace, a show curated by Sreekrishnan KP is now online. “Space is autogenous and is in constant creation/destruction.  It takes place and abolishes itself  in concurrence. In the show ‘espace’ I put together 4 artists who generate diverse Aesthetic content on this organism, space. Four can denote a square. But ‘ESPACE’ elseways involve artists,  whose creative gestures trigger divergent reflections on space, aside from a square. Four can denote a ‘square’. But ‘ESPACE’ elseways involve artists, whose creative gestures trigger divergent reflections on space, aside from a square”, says curator Sreekrishnan K P.

Midhun Mohan is a young artist with versatile interests. His work titled Akbar instructing the “Mahabharatha” translators, is a visual feast. “the idea of “space” in Indian and Persian Miniatures, especially in Mughal miniatures is not something that ‘contain’ the subject, (characters, narrative, architecture, etc) but a sponge-like being that grows around them which sometimes shrinks, extents, reverses the idea of foreshortening in a European perspective, flatten into mere decorative patterns and sometimes empties itself into a void. It never deepens the space by ‘vanishing’ into a point (or multiple points), instead, it deepens by immense detailing even in an insignificant narrative element, as in digital medium- every pixel counts. Midhun says passionately, “I was equally fascinated with this aesthetical aspect of miniature painting and the protagonist of this work – emperor Akbar. I couldn’t help myself from making miniatures and it was not the desire to replicate or re interpret, but to repeat the ‘unrepeatable’ charm of miniature painting.”