Down to a fine art

Saraswati Renata, Seeds of Life, wood fired ceramics, found objects, watercolour and charcoal on paper

The pandemic certainly got us thinking. It made us reassess our approach to life. For Apurva Kulkarni, an independent academic, artist and art curator, it got him to re-examine the three decades he's spent teaching. Kulkarni, who currently teaches visual arts at the Goa College of Architecture, started an online art residency in August last year, through an art education initiative called Altamirra - a title borrowed from what his house in Goa is called, named after the cave in Spain that is home to prehistoric paintings and engravings.

Rajvi Mehta, Memory Maze, unfired clay shelf with mixed media

Altamirra's website launches today with an exhibition called Unfounded Realities: A Cartography of the Unconscious, showcasing work from the residency by 11 artists across mediums, as well as one art writer. The theme of the exhibition stems from the 15-day residency Objet Trouvé+, which focused on the surrealist principle of the ‘found object' - "the notion that one could project one's thoughts and ideas onto a representational readymade object(s)." A virtual conversation with the artists will also be held this evening.

Apurva Kulkarni. Pic/Rajeshree Thakker

Kulkarni, who was a founder-member of Synchronicity, a seminal art group in Goa in the mid-1980s, states that the website is user-friendly and yet experimental. "Surrealism is like delving into the unconscious. I would like to keep the exhibition live for a month or two, and will also be thinking of more art residencies," he shares.

Log on to: altamirraonline.com