Mountain Magic Art Show-March 2007

The first art exhibition of Hamshira Events was held in March 2007 at the Government Museum Gallery, Chandigarh.

A Selection of Mandi-based painter Naresh Pandit were curated by Nirupama Dutt in a show called Mountain Magic.

The show was coordinated by Upasna Dutt.

The event included a story reading session and a writers' workshop.

Mountain Magic

Naresh Pandit enthuses present truths onto his canvases that have elements of Pahari art, says Parbina Rashid

Naresh’s paintings seem familiar, yet not. Since they come under the title ‘An Exhibition of Pahari Art’, we try to relate his works to the usual Pahari paintings we had seen earlier. The two-dimensional forms, trademarks of a Pahari painting, are there, but the expressions are not what one would expect. The earthy beauty of Himachali women is not lost, but the usual soft and dreamy expression is being replaced by harsh reality, what one can safely describe as the face of a workingwoman. That, in a nutshell, is the changing face of Pahari art.

This is what Narersh Pandit’s latest endeavour is—to popularise Pahari paintings and he is doing this by mixing the traits of Pahari miniatures with modern art. “Pahari paintings are beautiful but they are no longer relevant to society. And they have been produced and reproduced so many times on the same line that one feels you have seen it all. So to make it make this art form interesting we have to keep on re-inventing,” says Naresh, who was in town recently for his exhibition at Punjab Kala Bhavan in Sector 16.

The stagnation in Pahari paintings, according to this Mandi-based artist, came from the fact that half of today’s artistic community is either going modern way, deviating from their roots or while the other half is simply sticking to the age-old theme and techniques.

“How many new themes can be spanned from Radha-Krishna ‘Raas-Leela’ and for that matter how a middle class man or woman relate to art works based on themes which are not remotely connected with reality,” he asks.

Naresh Pandit

In his attempt to bring the middle-class into art fold, Naresh has robbed some of the delicacies of Pahari paintings off and instead, infused a little harshness into the faces, just to remind you that there is another side to the delicate beauty of a Himachali woman.

Along with his modern Pahari art, Naresh continues with his ‘Sun’ series capturing the source of energy in its gigantic form and mountains in its true form and texture. Once again, Naresh has simplified the three dimensional landscapes into two-dimensional view, in true Pahari style way. Executed in mixed media (acrylic and water colour), his paintings exude an aura of change in nature.

A writer too (with three publications to his credit), Naresh’s lashes out at today’s exhibitionistic mentally of the younger generation. “Today art is more of pradarshan than anything else,” he says. But does not a little bit of pradarshan pays rich dividend in today’s world?

“Well, for us artists the most beautiful experience comes during gestation period of a painting, the pleasure that an artists derives from the canvas, his hands and his eyes,” says Naresh and money, according to him, does not measure up to that. Well, maybe you need to have an artist’s sensitivity to understand that.