Moment, Intercepted brings together two accomplished artists who have been engaged in their art practice for over a decade now. Both are observers and interpreters of the human condition and despite their divergence in style, technique and perception, Devaraj and Prakash Babu respond to common universal stimuli and provocations.
Devaraj’s paintings lead you through a stark and semi-fictional world of monochromatic shades and hues. The setting is at once haunting and alluring. Hymns of solitude and songs of silence welcome the visitor to a captivating stage set where an intense play has just begun. The whole environment conjures up many things: a sacred space, a lost domain, a quake-hit and ruined paradise.
Where are such landscapes situated in? Are they real or imaginary? Are they vestiges of some bygone era? Do they not remind us of some of our own haunting dreams?
In this brooding and solemn theatre lie solitary figures in regal composure. They have no earthly possessions; no fields to graze and cultivate; no mission to accomplish; no one to protect or be protected from. Yet they betray no fear, emotion or insecurity. They seldom wear clothes; yet they are not naked.
They are not warriors or combatants – physical or metaphoric; far from being those, they look like messengers of peace and patience. Their bravado has more to do with acceptance of the condition than the audacity of denying it. Despite the ominous landscape that surrounds them, they seem to radiate a ray of hope and realization.
It is a stark world of sharp contrasts and glorious contradictions, yet there is a deep connection between the figures and the landscapes they reside in. In such a situation, the artist’s intervention is that of a gentle interceptor whose brushstrokes nurture complex, profound and yet strangely uncomplicated moments of stunning intensity.
Prakash Babu’s paintings too are about moments, intercepted as frozen gestures and found fragments. They provide closely encountered private views of public spaces.
Over the last decade, Prakash’s artistic practice has drawn him to explore several mediums. His passionate and personal involvement with theatre, literature, film making, and design-related activities has provided him with a unique perspective of life and art. A media person who is continually confronted by a variety of images, Prakash assimilates and balances all his interests before creating a universe of his own.
The artist’s work in this exhibition brings out his unique talents and understanding of grasping and intercepting moments of awareness. At first glance, his paintings seem to present simple images - strikingly captured and intriguingly composed. On further examination, the viewer is drawn into a deliberately hazy but intensely experienced environment.
A cotton field with erect shoots becomes an evocative landscape; gestures of political leaders and even fingers of folded hands convey subtle meaning and message; an art work about to be auctioned becomes a symbol of both delight and provocation… In each of his images, Prakash tries to break the narrative text and leads us into a deeper and thoughtful moment.
Prakash Babu’s images invariably incorporate subtle socio-political subtexts. They cultivate periodic seizures seen on the surface of a newspaper or magazine. They reveal how our political subsistence is often guided through intricately ornate plots and precariously narrow schemes. For Prakash, seeing is believing; it is as much about seeking, learning, understanding.
In essence, Moment, Intercepted is all about evocative sightings and curious mind-games. It is about intensely experienced human situations and feelings. It is about discreet disclosures, questioning glances, understated relationships. It is about striving to share an experience, and providing an understanding.
Moment, Intercepted is about perceiving the fragments, capturing the details, and intercepting those distilled moments of critical time and essential space.
B Devaraj
Devaraj was born in Channenahalli village, Bangalore South in 1966. His parents were from the farming community and provided him with basic education in the village. He flirted with science by joining the Government Science College but failed. This led him to try his hand in a variety of odd jobs as an office boy, delivery boy, a screen printer’s assistant and apprentice designer. In his last job, he received timely help from Artech, a screen printing unit, which used his services and encouraged him in his artistic pursuits.
Devaraj entered the College of Fine Arts, Karnataka Chitrakala Parishat, Bangalore in 1988 barely managing to pay the fees. By 1995, he completed his Bachelors degree and Masters in Painting. As a student, he won several awards including Karnataka Lalitkala Academy Award (1992) and Kejriwal Student Award (1993).
He had his first solo show at Chitrakala Parishat in 1997; a second there in 2005. In between, he won the National Award in 2004 for his strikingly stark monochromatic painting titled B/W TV (Acrylic on canvas / 66” x 66”). He was awarded of Senior Fellowship, by Ministry of Human Resources Development, Govt of India (2008-09). Since 1991 he has participated in over 40 selected group shows and artist camps. He has produced six large murals in Bangalore. His paintings are in collections with NGMA, New Delhi, Infosys, Biocon, ITPL and Brooke Bond, Bangalore, as also ABS Gallery, Baroda, and India Fine Arts and Bharat Petroleum, Mumbai.
A full-time painter, Devaraj lives and works in Bangalore. His wife, Bindu, presently works as an assistant curator at NGMA, Bangalore. His home is decorated with colourful paintings of his young son, Siddharth (6).
MS Prakash Babu
Prakash Babu was born in the historically significant Chitradurga. He worked at the Kanoria Centre for Arts, Ahmedabad during 1989-90 before joining the Viswa Bharati University, Santiniketan for his Post-Diploma in Painting.
He held two solo shows one in Bangalore and another in New Delhi in 1998; over the years, he has participated in a number of group shows. In 2003, he took part in Helsinki International Artist in residency program in the field of Visual Art (Film/ Video) in Finland under the UNESCO- ASCHBERG 2001-2002.
Prakash has always had a literary flair which later expanded to new interest in films and theater. He is himself a filmmaker of repute. He has produced and directed several short films which have been screened in Tehran, Turkey, Jordan, Mumbai, Kolkata, New Delhi and Thiruvananthapuram.
Prakash, who has designed books and sets for theatrical productions, lives and works in Bangalore.
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