“Pleasurable Anxieties” Solo Show of Paintings By Contemporary artist Shanmukh Tamada in Jehangir

Shanmukh with his artwork

Delhi based artist Shanmukh Tamada's first Mumbai solo exhibition titled ‘Pleasurable Anxieties' is slated to open on 22nd August 2023 at Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai. Famous veteran artist and pedagogue, Shri. Prabhakar Kolte will inaugurate the exhibition at 5 pm. Eminent Art Historian and Curator, Shri. JohnyML will be the Guest of Honor.

Shanmukh Rao Tamada aka Shanmukh Tamada hails from Vishakhapatanam and was trained under the famous sculptor, Ravinder Reddy. After his education in art at the Fine Arts College at Vizhag, Tamada came to Delhi to set up his studio and ever since he has been participating in group shows in Delhi and elsewhere. Recently he had had a successful solo exhibition titled ‘Autobiography of a Visual Mechanic' curated by JohnyML at Bharat Art Space Gallery, Gurugram.

What makes Tamada different from his contemporaries is the choice of the medium; his favorite medium is industrially made foils. Multi-colored foils are used with dexterous coats of acrylic paints on canvases and Tamada works on them like an action painter in order to create psychedelic landscapes and images that keep changing shapes in the eyes of the beholder depending on the distance that the viewer takes from the painting.

Light and distance play a great role in Tamada's paintings for the surfaces are created by multiple layers of foils. The deliberation in foil application is limited to the creation of surfaces and once the action starts he is a possessed man. He acts on his canvases till he gets the desired effect. According to him foils are industrial products that are flimsy and enduring alike.

"Looking at the foils I realized that they are like life; shiny, glittering, tough and so brittle. You need strength to break it at the same time a sharp object to could sear through it. I started off with the foils on an experimental basis almost a decade back and now that has become the most comfortable medium for me," says Tamada.

"In Tamada's works the precariousness is not what the result that he looks for. Instead, he likes to reveal the possibilities of a space that is at once light and heavy by virtue of the material and the method. Knowing that the works of art are created by the extremely thin and feather-light foils, the viewer feels the lightness of the painterly surface; this feeling is added by the fact that no heavy images are created by the artist on the canvases. They are light. But they look heavy as a whole because the viewer may feel incapacitated in discerning the totality of the images that glitter and fade, depending on the ken of approach. The painterly surfaces that Tamada creates are alluring and enticing, exactly the way the sharpest knives and the softest silks are. The latter two impart a feeling of anxiety mixed with pleasure; something that could be connected with speed and hormonal high," writes Johny ML in the catalogue essay written for ‘Pleasurable Anxieties'.

From: 22^nd to 28^th August 2023

"Pleasurable Anxieties"

Solo Show of Paintings

By Contemporary artist Shanmukh Tamada

VENUE:

Jehangir Art Gallery

161-B, M.G. Road,

Kala Ghoda, Mumbai 400 001

Timing: 11am to 7pm.

Contact: +91 9833619918, 9769997269