Glass Dreams

Satish Chauhan, a Delhi based artist, who graduated in fine arts (paintings) from College of Fine Arts, New Delhi, is one of the prominent artist portraying modern and contemporary art in his work. Trained initially in the technique of Kangra School, Chauhan has been experimenting with the ethos of expressionism, the medley of miniature techniques and the subject of man and women who belong to an age that just went by. He has participated in many respected art exhibition in India and overseas and has also organized his own exhibitions. His paintings are in the permanent collection of L.K.A., college of arts & in many private collections in India and abroad. He was also awarded scholarship in watercolours paintings by AIFACS, New Delhi, 1990.

His recent works, with the theme-Glass Dreams, were on display from 4th Nov.-13th Nov, 2008 at Shridharni Gallery, Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi. The exhibition has been very successfully. In this collection he has used mythic symbols born of romance, violence, eroticism, mystery, nobility, languor, and exotism. The feel of his collection is small, cosy and intimate; the tension between the two versions of “the classical and the contemporary” is extraordinarily close and rich. Chauhan masters the use of watercolours in his work which can be experienced in his recent collection also where he has given a divine feeling to the paintings by using watercolours creatively.

Uma Nair, a well known art critics remarks, “think of an artist vocabulary culled over two decades- distilled in a gestation period of sorts, it springs out into reality. Marry it with modern day symbolism in spatial solidity, it becomes like a representation of irreconcilable visions of urbanism.”

Mentioning the spirit of his paintings she says, “in Chauhan’s art there are clear and clean signals of culture, of subjugated passions, trepidations, and confirmed practices, themes aptly comparable in literature and tales of Geet Govind also which arose with the regularity of solar and lunar cycles; sensually rendered women with beckoning gazes in exotic costumes stratified with bejeweled collars and headdresses dripping coins, or languishing in embroidered dresses and jewels under exquisitely draped silks. Chauhan thrives in his study of grand artitectural sites and rustic archaeological elements because he echoes them in his seductively lit women; achingly picturesque landscapes of the sky at sunset are punctuated by looming lines.”

Praising the use of watercolours and tempra Uma says, “despite moonlit romanticism and the perfume of Ottoman Empire legends, works produced by those under the spell of the miniatures can best be characterized as academic art-scrupulous in historical and pragmatic details, and strongly narrative-resonant with photographic immediacy.” She further adds, “when you look at the ethereal and dulcet notes of expression in the watercolours and temperas you thinks of olden day palaces and latticed windows where only one ray of sun penetrates the interior twilight: it comes, and only at noon, through a small triangular hole on the wall high up under the roof.”