Shibu Natesan, External Affairs

9 - 30 January 2009

Grosvenor Vadehra is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by leading Indian painter Shibu Natesan, his second solo exhibition with the gallery.

 

Shibu Natesan creates smoothly rendered paintings with an exacting technique and almost flawless finish. Whilst his subject matter is of our world, he goes beyond simple representation, exploring a detached, surreal, dream-like quality by creating large scale canvases in which disassociated subjects and symbols are juxtaposed.

 

In this exhibition the emerging theme is that of the shifting relationship between man and nature. A suburban housing block is dwarfed behind a tangle of foxgloves (External Affairs I); a veiled woman encompassed by foliage is restricted by barbed wire (No Speech II).  In one painting we see a jogger running towards us through a dense tangle of flowers, his face and body contorted by his efforts, which are overwhelmed by the lazy, whimsical growth of the flowers which dominate the large canvas (External Affairs I). Natesan highlights the struggle of modern man and his structured disciplines with the unregulated forces of nature.

 

Shibu Natesan was born in Kerala, and studied painting at the College of Fine Arts in Trivandrum, in 1987, followed by a Masters Degree in Print Making from the Faculty of Fine Art, MSU, Baroda in 1991 and won the Uriot prize, Rijksakadmie Van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam in 1996.

 

Solo Exhibitions:1987 Drawings, Fine Arts Gallery, Trivandrum ; 1995 Futility of Device, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai ; 1997 Linkage, Galerie Nanky De Vreeze, Amsterdam ; 1998 Missing, Nature Morte, New Delhi ; 1999 Missing, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai ; 2001 Paintings, Galerie Nanky De Vreeze, Amsterdam ; 2002 Paintings, Sakshi Gallery, Bangalore ; 2005 Existence of Instinct, Sakshi Gallery at Shridharani Gallery, New Delhi ; 2005 Vision Unlimited, Grosvenor Gallery, London;  2007 Each One Teach One, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York in collaboration with Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai