Three Robust Enquiries

KP Reji, T. Venkanna and Smriti Dixit's new works foreground the freedom to resist, desire and reimagine, discovers Jasmine Shah Varma.

- Jasmine Shah Varma

The busy scheduling of exhibitions is back on track since the beginning of the year. Around the Mumbai Gallery Weekend, patrons got to see new works by KP Reji, Smriti Dixit, and T. Venkanna after a long hiatus. Incidentally, all of them are alumni of Baroda's M. S. University's Faculty of Fine Arts. Each of them addresses pressing contemporary concerns regarding personal freedoms and societal demands; each of them is diverse in their art practices.

KP Reji's solo exhibition Cut Pieces held at The Guild, Alibaug, from February 19th to April 14th, marked a departure from his earlier visual language to new approaches in expression, with fewer human characters. The works titled Police in the Garden and Police in the Forest are painted in a verdant colour palette; another set of works is pared down to brushstrokes in black on a glossy silver surface, titled Cut Piece (After Yoko Ono), The Wait (Jetty) and Name. Works like Life Study (River View Studio), Delhi Visit, and Groom in the Blue Background, have human figures and are painted in the narrative style.