Artstream Gallery Collection Part-1
Our purpose is to infuse creativity in the society by presenting art by leading or upcoming contemporary artists around the world to inspire and empower our audience.
The present collection in the gallery comprise of 1 Italian and 13 Indian artists.
Federico Tomasi
This Italian artist, is a resident gallery artist, whose career as an artist spans 3 decades. He is an established international artist, who took part in the Venice Biennale, is now based in Bali. He is a figurative expressionist painter. He is influenced by Jackson Pollack and other artists of abstract expressionist movement.
He uses portraitre and human faces as a vehicle of expression. He fell in love with the idea of seeing the canvas on the floor and discovering new points of view, discovering colours, the rhythm of application and not being totally in control of the brush and the canvas.
The combination of abstract expressionism and ‘action painting’, he developed his own style and technique and figurative expressionism give Federico’s works its unique character.
Artist thoughts:
“The expression on a face reflects a person’s state of mind and I use faces as vehicles of expression. In this series of works I wanted to create faces which transform themselves so that they almost resemble masks, where the eyes become life and soul, the soul which hides behind a living mask,” explains the Bali-based artist.
I love how my work comes completely from my instincts, it’s almost unconscious and I’m never in total control,” says Tomasi, explaining how he works. “I am inspired by my mistakes because it’s not about reaching a goal, it’s the freedom of not knowing where you’ll end up,” he smiles.
“The paint flows wherever it wants to and I think it’s a very nice dialogue. Whenever I look at my works, it seems like they’re always moving.”
To become an artist, you need a reason to paint, not just the ability. It’s just like a musician and his instrument. You can make music but it has to come from inside, from your soul, if not, there is something missing.”
You can check his work and his thoughts on our website.
(https://www.artstream.com.sg/product-category/federico-tomasi)
The history of discovering the other artists from India…
The other 13 artists are new discoveries from India. Though, Singapore is well represented with Chinese and South-east Asian art in most galleries, there was a lack of really good Indian artists being represented in the local galleries.
Besides the occasional private shows promoted of some established names in the Indian art scene in Singapore, it’s hard to find good quality Indian art in Singapore.
The artists represented in the gallery are not your usual Indian artists that paint rural village scenes (nothing wrong with that) or Ganeshas’. These artists are full time artists and accomplished in their own right, within and outside of India.
The selection process took 6 months and multiple trips to all over India to identify, connect and understand the artists’ works, their philosophy, techniques and their unique visual language. Out of hundreds of such visits, we have selected these 13 artists.
Many observers, are surprised when we mention the artists are from India because their works are unusual and progressive. These artists are chosen because, they represent the best of the contemporary
artists in India. A lot of them are represented in Europe, New York and other parts of the world but not in Singapore and around the region.
It is our humble attempt to present some of these fascinating contemporary artists of India, in the best light possible.
Vinod Sharma
Vinod Sharma has been painting for more than 38 years. Born in 1954, this 67-year-old is not slowing down any time soon. His first solo exhibition was in 1978. Since then had held solo exhibitions in London& New York in 1994, 2 solos in Frankfurt &, Hofhim in Germany and countless group exhibitions in Paris, Dubai, Korea, Singapore, Bangkok, Pakistan etc. He has a veracious appetite for creating his art. He is one of the leading contemporary landscape artist, in India. He is an international artist with collectors all over the world. His paintings are collected mostly in Europe, US, India and some parts of Asia.
He is a contemporary landscape artist. The photo realism in his artworks on canvas is magnificent. It’s hyper realism. From far, you would mistake his artwork for a photograph. His breadth-taking landscapes are devoid of people, trees, animals and everything else you see in nature and you are simply left with the lone magnificent rock formations. He is fascinated with rock surfaces. He calls them ‘ROCKSCAPES’. Initially, it started with rock formation of India and his world-wide travels in search mountainous areas on the surface of the planet led him to create more of these fascinating rockscapes.
Over time, he transcended reality and started painting rock formations coming out of his vivid imaginations. The works you find in this collection are part of that majestic creations of his fertile mind.
Artist thoughts:
“For me, the landscape is merely painting. With my background in graphics, the technique is important to me. Etching, lithography, silkscreen and hence the linear effect in my painting otherwise there are no preconceptions for composition, it is automatically there.”
“I paint in oil, large in size canvasses, my subject for last thirty years is landscape, call it rocks capes if you like. Earlier it was through a window, now the window is gone and canvass is a wide vision.”
“Rocks fascinate me, I want to capture their character, the feel, do experimentation with the forms, layers, and colors. Rocks are no more hues of gray, they are orange, blue, green, etc.”
Mohan Singh
TONES AND UNDERTONES
The artworks in the gallery is part of this collection. Mohan Singh has been painting and teaching art graduate students in an art university for a long time. He manages both, his career as an artist as well the responsibility of infusing art into the youth of the society.
Thus, his work revolves very much around the students he teaches and nurtures on daily basis. It was in this university we met for the first time. A very humble man, downplaying his amazing artistic abilities and conviction that the imparting of creativity to society is foundational and essential for the growth of modern contemporary society.
These five works from the collection in the gallery showcase, the inner and the outer sphere, the intimate and the social sphere, and their corollaries. The articulation of that has been done through a series of single figures, or rather faces, tinged with a colour palette that knows no boundaries.
As a teacher and an artist, he is privy to a first-hand exposure of daily interaction with the young, and therefore their tastes, their longings, their said and unsaid statements, represent the right opportunity to shape his art practices.
Part of the reason behind Mohan Singh’s conscious decision to confine himself to a rigid formulation of singles in his art was because it afforded him rare freedom. The artist could use his form to psychologically internalize and publicly contextualize the responses and feelings of the youth of today.
The face looking into one’s eyes at once becomes traceable as the visual character of the form, is not blurred behind indefinite boundaries between form and background. The colour pigments in the entire body of works despite their riotous character, convey a range of emotions, transforming the close look at each face into a dramatic experience of mind reading.
The flat floating forms, patterning the backgrounds, also explore the mappings of connectedness that link variegated thoughts bombarding the mind at any given time.
A strict adherence to the female face and that too, in the prime of her youth, was another conscious decision of the artist.
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The use of geometric overlays in a mesh of fine line circles as a backdrop is a probe into the subtle orderliness behind the apparent chaos in youthful aspirations. Elsewhere the squiggles, the heart shapes, crescent moons define stray influences that beset the senses and dwell as undertones behind the outer facial facade. Balancing the inner element is the inputs of blocks and lines of calligraphy along the shoulder, shaping the contours of the jaw, like stitchery.
Artist thoughts:
“Emotions, conversations, gestures of the eyes, body language and the portrayal of a thousand thoughts within a single mind is best expressed through a female viewpoint, is his profound take.
The figures thus become a reflection of society, where contemporary changes, and depths of feeling surface as colourful pictorials, where each colour is applied with meaning. ‘The clear-cut applications, rather than the more pale translucent hues of soft solidity provide a deeper connection with the character’s feelings and expressions”.
We will continue with the rest of the artists represented in the gallery on the next installment on Artstream Collection Part II.
We wish to invite you to our gallery and our website to discover more about these interesting artists and their works and connect with us.
