presented in association with Hacienda gallery

curated by Jasmine Shah Varma

This exhibition is the first solo show for an young artist from India, Pradeep I. Mishra. Pradeep is a graduate of the famous Sir J.J.School of Art , Mumbai, India. He is an exceptionally talented painter that many collectors are following with much interest. His technical ability and control of the medium is masterful, and exciting to experience. His probing eye and knowledge of securing an emotional response from the viewer is acute and sensitive.

Standing before Pradeep Mishra’s work one is soused in the velvety, reverberating red background and the central image painted in contrast colours in the foreground. In these premeditated images he chooses to portray certain areas in exemplary details while others are, in a manner of speaking, kept out of the spotlight. The baby’s eyes, it’s delicate lips, the velvety soil that one can nearly smell and the redness of the rose petals are portrayed realistically. These are key motifs in informing the viewer and experience of the work.

The works are not narrative. Throught the prism of nature Pradeep wants his viewers to see psychological aspects of humanity at large. He says, “I want to evoke a presence of a being rather than portray it.” This is perhaps why, even though his works address concerns of humanity he chooses animals, plants and flowers to portray them.

An absence speaks more than the presence. He intentionally obliterates details of the surroundings seen in the photographic references – whether it is a street or a farm or a house. The current suite of works is especially spare in such details – in the past (fertilesoil 2005) the donkey is seen laden with a sack. In the present work the sugestion of burden bearing or servitude is not portrayed. The posture of the animals, the petals, leaves or thorns are sensitively and subtly suggestive.

In his striking use of red, the artist says: “I am portraying the common and not something new. Every heartbeat is different yet it is the same pattern.” The red has become a part of his artistic identity and his emphasis on it’s symbolical connotations is being repeated intentionally.

Jasmine Shah Varma, 2008