India Art Festival at Nehru Centre from 26 to 29 May 2022

After two years of pandemic, India Art Festival is presenting its 10th edition in the city from 26 to 29 May 2022 at Nehru Centre, Worli, after successful editions at Delhi and Bengaluru in the last two months.

It has been very tough journey for art fraternity in the last two years of covid pandemic, as showcasing art and inviting large gatherings were restricted.

We saw boom of online art shows, art festivals – 2Ds, 3Ds in all formats during the pandemic and came to the hard-earned conclusion that nothing can replace physical exhibitions at venues where in artists, gallerists, art enthusiasts, art writes and art buyers come together and interact under one roof.

The art market spaces provided by annual art fairs across the world are proved to be reliable source to acquired art and contribute considerable part of annual art and antique market turnover.

Though art galleries too are one of the prime art market constituents, the art festivals have helped bring out art to the public arena, at easily accessible spaces to one and all.

The thousands of artworks available in the art festival along with ready statistics of comparative prices and an opportunity for firsthand interaction with the artists & art writes under one roof made art fairs popular with the art buyers surpassing the conventional sale figures in art galleries.

Today’s art buyers are highly busy ‘working class’ who look for saving time required to explore various art spaces scattered around the city!

Not only major art galleries, but even mid-level to smaller galleries prefer today to operate from office spaces and achieve their annual sale target through participation in the domestic and international art fairs.

Having said above, no wonder then than the most awaited annual ‘celebration of contemporary art’ - India Art Festival, known for its ‘democratic representation of art’ hosted three annual editions at Mumbai, New Delhi and Bengaluru within a span of two months this year!!

This growth and expansion of India Art Festival from single annual edition to three yearly editions in three major metro cities in the last twelve years show the growing interest in Indian art. Rajendra, art festival director say ‘the entry of nouveau rich ‘super busy working class’ of art buyers on the art market horizon not only helped sustain the art festival in the difficult times but injected phenomenal growth in scale, quality and number of art festival editions annually’.

The Mumbai edition of India Art Festival with 45 art galleries and 550 artists is back after two years with renewed vigour from 26 to 29 May 2022 at Nehru Centre, Worli. India Art Festival have hosted 20 successful editions so far in the last twelve years at Mumbai, New Delhi and Bengaluru.

The India Art Festival (IAF), a contemporary art fair aims to be an art platform for all levels of artists, rural or urban, is now in its tenth edition at Mumbai. The dual-module pattern that the Art Festival has adhered to over the years - the Galleries and the Artists Pavilion has proven successful in the bygone editions. This year too, there are about 45 galleries and 550 artists participating from all over India and other cities from out of India.

The ground floor of discovery of India building in Nehru Centre houses over 50 booths occupied by art galleries representing their fresh talented artists whereas 100 booths on the second floor are occupied by art galleries as well as independent artists. Art Festival Director Rajendra confirms “The art gallery booths on the ground floor were booked even before the pandemic was over early this year... Since last few years many art galleries are also occupying the booths on to the second floor; this year nearly 40 % of space of the Artist’s Pavilion is now occupied by art galleries.”

The galleries participating in the art festival this year are Gnani Arts and Olive Art Gallery from Singapore, Art Nouveau, Drushay Art Gallery, Easel Stories, Eminent Art Gallery, Gallery Pioneer, Gallery 16, Galerie Art Eterne, Gallerie Splash, Gallery vision Art, Kalasrotam, Merakii Art House, NIFA Fine Art academy, Studio7Seven, The Lexicon Art Gallery, Uchaan are coming from New Delhi & NCR.

The Mumbai-based galleries - ArtDesh Foundation, Artvista, Dolna the Movement, Gallery Nitya, Greyscale, House of Emerge, Mriya Arts, Rhythm Art, Sahaj Srajan, Studio3, The Bombay Art Society and thecurators.art are showcasing best of their artists.

Charvi Art Gallery & Huespikes from Bangalore, Rabi Art Gallery from Santiniketan are going to exhibit emerging as well as wide variety of master artists from across India. The other galleries Beyond Square from Udaipur, Kala Bhavan from Tripura, Studio Latika Katta, Dehradun, and M Narayan Studio from Pune are also part of this year’s art festival.

The art works by artists A Vishwam, Amol Pawar, Gnana P, M Suriyamoorthy, N S Manoharan, Nidhi S Mathur, P Perumal, R Karthikeyan, Sachin Sagare, Sivaperakas M, Sonia Adlakha, Subhashini represented by Gnani Arts from Singapore display a mix of semi-abstract and artworks in figurative styles in vivacious colours.

Gallerie Splash from Gurgaon, one of the major art galleries of New Delhi & NCR is showcasing works of master artists Ashok Bhowmick, Thota Vaikuntam, Manu Parekh, Lalu Prasad Shaw, Ramesh Gorjala, HR Das, Nagesh Ghodke, Swaraj Das and other promising artists.

Visitors to the art festival appreciate warm welcome and interaction from galleries and there are few regular art galleries participating in the art fair circuit like Easel Stories (Noida), The Lexicon Art Gallery & Vision Art Gallery, (New Delhi) Studio3 & Rhythm Art (Mumbai), who always seem to be passionate about their display and presentation and do every efforts to convince visiting art buyers on why their booths are worth spending time and artworks best suited to be added in every collections.

The new participating galleries like thecurators.art, Gallery 16, Drushya Art Gallery and Sneha Arts have chosen to make the most of the brilliant opportunity of being part of the art festival by displaying the artworks of established and emerging but saleable artists which include Anjaneyulu G, Bharati Pitre, Gurcharan Singh, Ramkumar, Sachindranath Jha, Satish Gupta, Seema Kohli, Shuvaprassana, Tapasya Gupta, Vinita Karim, Achuthan Khullar, Amitav Das, Anwar Khan, Binoy Vergese, Jai Zharotia, Rajendra Tikku, S G Vasudev, Jogen Chowdhury, Suhas Roy, Jatin Das
Rabin Mandal, Sakti Burman, Prokash Karmakar, Niladri Paul, Snehalata Prasad and Jayasri Burman among others.

The most promising artists with uncanny insights showcasing in the art festival this year are presented by Grayscale, Studio7 and Dolna the movement include A Viswam, Arjumand Sulemani, Ashok Rathod, Subodh Poddar, Alpana Asthana, Anna Kurian, Dileep Kosode, Dr. Shirish Ambekar, Hariram Phad, Karishma Wadhwa, S Vinitkumar, Sandipta Talukdar, Sushmita Dam, Arundhati Choudhary, Asurvedh
Ramesh Thorat, Reena Choudhary, Shruti Jain, Suresh Kumar, Vaishali Gupta, Vibha Sharma and Vijaya Ved.

Uchaan, and Artvista galleries are at the forefront to promote young artists in the professional art world, are also exhibiting senior and established artists. The wide-range of figurative, abstracts, and landscapes by seniors and young artists like Aakriti Jhamb, Alisha Thakur, Anurag Anand, Ashima Razdan, Barkha Saksena, Dolly Bhansali Chopra, Gauri Seth, Neeraj Sharma, Poonam Bhatnagar, Ritika Aurora, Manju Srivatsa, Girish Adannavar, Gopal Pardeshi, Kumar Gaikwad, Prashant Yampure, Sanjay Satpute, Sanket Jadhav and others are seen in their booths.

Some of the solo booths at the art galleries section by M Narayan, Smirta Swarup, Chethana Ravi, Latika Katt, Pankaj Bavdekar, Inderjeet Singh Grover, Manju Srivatsa, and Poonam Bhatnagar will be an added highlight along with master pieces displayed by senior sculptor Latika Katt.

A heady mix of vibrant paintings in figurative style with exquisite collectible sculptures by Asurved, Suresh Kumar, Vijaya Ved, Arundhati Choudhary, Reena Choudhary, Shruti Jain, Vaishali Gupta, Vibha Sharma and Ramesh Thorat can be seen the booth of Studio7Seven from New Delhi. Mriya Arts is seen presenting artworks from Tanjore school. Senior artist Inderjeet Singh Grover’s impressionistic landscapes can’t be missed in the art festival.

By returning every year, with a range of artists and their works, India Art Festival aims to create a stable platform for all kinds of art to fulfill passion investment need of art buyers and lovers in the metro cities Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru.

Highlight of the Art Festival: Artists Pavilion scaling new heights

Seascapes, landscapes, rural and urban scenarios, and abstracts are seen in abundance in the Artists Pavilion at the second floor, Nehru Centre in the India Art Festival starting from 26 to 26 May 2022. In this edition of art festival, over 250 independent artists are participating from 40 cities worldwide.

The aim of India Art Festival (IAF) behind providing booths to independent artists since the beginning is to create a dialogue between the viewers and the art maker, the artist and introduce some kind of democratic order in the art fair circuit. This works on a multiple level of engagement as it is necessary for the viewer to know the art practiced as it is needed for the artist to develop perspectives beyond their own lens of understanding, which the viewers provide.

The Artists’ Pavilion also encourages dialogue between the art market and the artists directly; here the sale and purchase of the artwork is on an open platform and the buyer or collector can approach an artist and the choices are numerous. This kind of freedom is rarely possible as both the artists and the buyers benefit from this arrangement.

This year the Artists’ Pavilion displays a few unknown talents who have brought out their expressions in the form of paintings and sculptures to entice the ever-changing palette of the art connoisseurs.

On display are landscapes, abstracts, religious and spiritual paintings, and exquisite figurative works. When one is awarded with such an eclectic platter of art works, it is only natural that the viewers are offered artworks of every possible style and medium.

There is no instant fix in art-world, like one day artist is unknown and the next day s/he is on her/his way to fame. Becoming successful and established as an artist happens gradually over a period of time and is based on a consistent and successful track record of shows, accomplishments and sales.

What India Art Festival does through artists pavilion here is ‘offer a platform with quality footfalls of art lovers and buyers’ which is nothing more than one step in a long and arduous process of artist’s journey!

It is said that abstract painting is the most difficult as it demands heightened sensitivity for composition and colours; artists Arpita Goyal, Ashish Kamble, Bharati Shah, Dilip Mali, Gauri Gulati, Krishnadhan Acharya, Prakash Bal Joshi, Meenal Sahoo, Neha Jhunjhunwala, RK Patnaik, Sachin Surve, and Shubhra showcasing in the artists pavilion chose this genre to express themselves whereas
Aarti Sharma, Deepali Pawar, Janhavi Bhide, Kharita, Mansi Sagar, Poonam Khanvilkar, Pravin Shinde, Rashmi Pote, Saudamini, Shraddha Parate, Shubhanqi Singh, Uttara Samant, and Vikram Malik ’s semi-abstract compositions will surely leave the viewer grappling with clues to read it multiple times.

Artists Renu Yadav and Ridhi Parekh exhibiting at the India Art Festival works in monochromatic tones, just concentrating on elements such as composition, value, lighting, and form.

The most tempting theme for artists even today is the landscape painting, be it floral, romantic, pastoral landscapes, seasonal springs, buildings and structures, waterscapes, or cityscapes.

All these types of landscapes are found in abundance at the India art festival. Waterscapes by Shilpa Dalal and Arpana Dugal, pastoral landscapes by Ramesh Yadav, Mariya Aamir Ali, Parag Mhaswade, Sharu Anjirbag, Vinita Sadarangani and Shashikant Patade, lyrical landscapes by Shubham, structural landscapes capturing the beauty of spaces by Archana Bangera, Atul Gendle, Mandrina Modi, Shubhashis Mandal, and Shuvendu Sarkar are going to attract nature loving visitors in the art festival.

Cityscapes by Shilpa Rasane and Swati Padhye along with flowerscapes by Anupama Thakoor, Deepika Shah and Suparna Singh add the unique insights in their compositions.

There is sense of freedom & playfulness seen in the work of Kavita Tambolkar, Ranjeet Sathe, Sumitra Ahlawat, Mitali Asthana, and Seema Shah whereas different level of sensuousness reverberates through the works of Kavita Jain Garg, Rajitha Bonthala, and B Narahari.

Chander Shekhar’s Mother-child, Dalip Chandolia and Pooja Thithe’s female protagonists, Nalini Joshi and Vaishally Sood hints of different treatment, seen rendered to the characters.

The figurative paintings by A G Nellagi, Antra Srivastava, Monica Ghule, Nilima Dani, Priti Kadu, Saurabh Dingare, Shubhangi Mehta and Uma Krishnamoorthy reflect contemporary sensibilities. The perfect fusion of folk style with contemporary times is seen through the works of Kanan Khant, Kranti Padelkar, Om Prakash Sharma, and Supriya Kaluskar.

Portraiture, as an essential channel of visual communication, has traditionally been the medium through which definitions of beauty are graphically expressed and Bhavik Parmar, Kanishka Mehra, Om Tadkar, Preeti Baliga, and Tanima Darji are best seen exploring ‘inner spirit’ of their ‘character’ rather than outside beauty through the portraits they have displayed in the art festival.

Refusing to treat the subjects in a direct visual express, artist Atul Todi, Manisha Bobade, Sangeeta Zurange, Vinayak Sarwankar and Ninad Chinchankar chose symbolic depiction to present their subjects.

Art has always been a means to express belief and devotion. Religious faith has inspired some of the most impressive and wondrous works of art ever produced. The artists expressing different beliefs and faiths in various styles and mediums in the art festival include Aastha Bairollia, Archana Mehta, Asha Shetty, Asmita Patil, Chandrani Bhattacharyya, Meenal Shah, Narendra Nampelly Gajalley, Paramesh Paul, Piyali Sarkar, Pooja Yadav, Rucha Dandekar, Sanjivanee Bhoir, Shilpa Jadhav, Shubhangi Gade, and Tara Sharma.

The visual beats or rhythm is something difficult to explain but our eyes anyhow spot it in art; colours can convey rhythm, lines can produce rhythm and there can be a rhythm in style, technique, brush strokes and even subject for that matter! What bind the artworks of Sonali Verma, Subir Das, Keshavi Mehta, Ruta Inamdar, Saurabh Basu, Shalaka Kavishwar, and Shruti Yewale is the one or other form of rhythm they have employed through their paintings!

The viewers need to take a second look at each of their work. In a similar way, what categorize the artwork together by artist Charlee Correia, Payal Mutta and Rahul Kamble is their surreal visual exploration, the way they all have employed form, colour, and composition!

So different but still connected! Anaya Jetha, Debashree Mavani and Paresh Thukrul chose world of animals and birds with highly realistic compositions to express their visual sonnet of wildlife kingdom.

Gallery Beyond Square from Udaipur remains at the forefront when it comes to promotion of Indian traditional art even in this era of modern art; they are showcasing exquisite Pichwai paintings and other artists experimenting with various traditional art styles exhibiting in the art festival.

Within the Artists Pavilion at second floor, one would find a moment of peace and tranquility if one went looking for it among the purely pious and spiritual expressions of the artists and also seen is the narrative story telling stance through many works.
One must visit ‘artists’ pavilion’ to find many artists teeming with the unbridled form of expressions at the second floor, Nehru Centre, worli, Mumbai!

Participating Galleries at India Art Festival 2022.

Delhi & NCR: Art Nouveau , Drishay Art Gallery, Gallerie Splash, Galerie Art Eterne, , Gallery Pioneer, Gallery Vision Art, Gallery 16, Easel Stories, Eminent Art Gallery, Kalasrotam, Merakii Art House, Nifa Fine Art Gallery, The Lexicon Art Gallery, Studio7Seven, Uchaan,

Mumbai: Rhythm Art, Studio3 Art Gallery, thecurators.art, Dolna The Movement, Gallery Pankaj Bavdekar, Gallery Nitya, Mriya Arts, Greyscale, Artvista, Canvas Dreams Art Gallery, Sahaj Srajan, ArtDesh Foundation, The Bombay Art Society, House of Emerge

Singapore: Gnani Arts, Olive Art Gallery

Bengaluru: Charvi Art Gallery, Huespikes, Studio Makali

Other Cities: Pichwai by Beyond Square(Udaipur), M Narayan Studio(Pune),
Rabi Art Gallery(Santiniketan), Studio Vriksha Chhaya(Varanasi), Kalabhawan(Kolkata/Agartala), Sneha Arts(Hyderabad),

India Art Festival
Dates: 26 to 29 May 2022, 11am to 7.30pm
Venue: Ground and Second Floor, Nehru Centre
Discovery of India Building, Worli