Go with the flow

Yufism is a compositional platform developed by Ashesh. It’s an amalgamation of many compositions such as still life, nature and landscape

Amitabh Ashesh unveils the third part in the series titled ‘Isee Tarah' at the Kamalnayan Bajaj Art Gallery at Nariman Point from October 27 to October 31 2024. The first two parts, namely "Is Tarah" and "Is Tarah Bhi" were showcased earlier in Bengaluru. Ashesh has been fine-tuning his craft for over a decade and has produced hundreds of both oil and charcoal paintings in the process. "I'm trained in the west, there you always work in dry media - charcoal and pastels - and also with oil and acrylic," says the artist. He trained under notable names in the art world such as Frank Lodbell, often associated with the Bay Area Figurative Movement - in his time at Stanford University Art Department from 1988 to 1994.

The Pune-based artist has been working on this collection for about a decade now. "Isee Tarah" comprises about 45 paintings but the entire three part series spans over a hundred paintings. After such fine tuning, the artist seems to have found home in stylised realism. Where realism aims at accuracy, stylised realism lets the imagination take over. When talking about his process, Ashesh says, "A painting starts with a compositional structure, it's like when building a house, you start with a blueprint. That blueprint is Yufism."

Yufism is a compositional platform developed by Ashesh himself. It's an amalgamation of many compositions such as still life, nature, and landscape. Nature could be personalised; and the figures may be fluid in their form. For instance, in his painting Sea Splashy, done in oil, the artist describes, "An abstracted woman at the beach wears sea waves as a skirt. There is a bobbing sailboat riding them. Her shoes are little sailboats as well. It's hard to say if the figure is a woman or the sea in a woman's form." The painting reflects the idea that there is very little difference between human beings and nature.

Ashesh's paintings are also always accompanied by original poems. The one accompanying ‘Reading Ecology', reads, ‘Beamed, stacked, piled high/ What are windows but masses of light?' The painting, done in pastel, shows a man sitting on a desk next to a window, through which light seems to be entering in all different forms. Ashesh explains, "Until now, windows have been painted as rectangles through which light passes. Yufism conceptualises them as masses of light in a major departure."

Choral Rain, done in oil, depicts a girl dancing in the rain amidst a concrete jungle, as the raindrops fall and wrap themselves around her like jewellery. "In Choral Rain, storm water falls and flies like ornamental necklace strings. Windows and buildings possess transposed attributes of pouring light or water and elasticity," says Ashesh.

Amitabh Ashesh

The Yufist compositional platform creates a unique type of imagery where scenic, figurative, and unseen elements exchange characteristics. "‘Is Tarah' and its variants - ‘Is Tarah Bhi' and for Mumbai, ‘Isee Tarah' signify the alternate or conceptually new approach I have taken. Things can also be done ‘this way' or Is Tarah."

WHAT: Isee Tarah by Amitabh Ashesh
WHERE: Kamalnayan Bajaj Art Gallery, where in mumbai?
WHEN: October 27 to 31, 2024
PRICE: N/A

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