Self taught artist Ranjan Kaul debuts with his first exhibition ‘Essence of Being’ at India International Centre from 12th to 19th November 2017. Ranjan’s art works capture images of the common people and their myriad moods, emotions and dynamics. Through the imaginative interplay of evocative hues, semi abstract figurative forms, energetic brushwork and textured surfaces, the art works are imbued with meaning and immediacy. The paintings portray varied dimensions of emotions and social realities with sensitive, intimacy and vitality.
Through his works, he brings to the fore the unnoticed or even ignored, portraying their banal existence and predicaments. The treatment in his paintings is layered – abstraction and simplification of form with use of varied hues and often heavy and cracked surface textures, suggestive of the abstract lives of the subjects. The backgrounds in his compositions are often muted to emphasize form.
At other times, the human figure is integrated with the background, the living and non-living melding together as it were. The postures in his works, sometimes awkward, reflect the nuances of human emotion.
According to artist Ranjan Kaul, “I indulge in spontaneous expression of my instincts and impulses with my experiments with form, texture and colour, but in a considered and controlled manner. As a humanist and artist, my paintings are thus manifestations of my emotional experiences as an observer of quotidian life.”
The texture, he shares, is reflective of the lives his subjects lead. “Because inside, they lead cracked lives that are frayed and complex at edges,” he shares. The characters on his canvas are animated, often expressing themselves and sometimes making conversation with their eyes.
“Essence of Being” is being showcased along with artist Sushant Kumar Das.
Exhibition Title: Essence of Being by Ranjan Kaul and Sushant Kumar Das
Dates: 12th to 19th November 2017
Time: 11am to 7pm
Venue: India International Centre, Main Art Gallery, New Delhi
About Ranjan Kaul:
Ranjan Kaul is an artist and fiction writer and divides his time between Delhi and Naldehra in the Shimla hills. He has been passionate about art since childhood and is a self-taught artist. Some of his paintings are available with art lovers. He had a long career in publishing and served as Managing Director of Oxford University Press, India. He drew and painted through most of his publishing career. An engineering graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, he also holds a master’s in English Literature from the University of Delhi; in addition, he did postgraduate studies in Product Design from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai. His fiction includes a novel, Through the Forest, Darkly (Hachette, 2010), and a collection of short stories, Silent Realities (Niyogi, 2016).