Alex Fernandes

Biography

ALEX FERNANDES (born 1963), who began his career as a photographer in Bombay, describes himself as a “product of the advertising and fashion industry”. His first job as a commercial photographer took him to West Asia, where he worked with the Boushari Color Film Company, which owned several of the best studios in Kuwait (1987-1990). After the First Gulf War, Fernandes joined the Kodak distributor, Ashraf’s, in Kuwait (1992-2001).

 

Fernandes’ job allowed him to travel to other West Asian countries and to Basel, Switzerland. He attended lighting and technical workshops with Hasselblad, Nikon, and Sinar Bron AG, manufacturers of the ‘Broncolor’ lighting systems. As a consultant, offering equipment and solutions to colleagues, Fernandes interacted came into contact with a wide array of photographers, styles and studio conditions.

 

Fernandes founded Portrait Atelier in Goa in 2004. He has held three solo exhibitions: ‘Portraits’ (Fontainhas Arts Festival, Panjim, 2005), ‘Goan Musicians’ (Fontainhas Arts Festival, Panjim, 2006), and ‘Tiatristes’ (Literati Bookshop, Calangute, January 2008). He is currently working on a series of portraits of people associated with the ‘counterculture’ of coastal North Goa, especially musicians who have played a role in the ‘beach party’ and ‘Goa trance music’ scenes that have evolved there.

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B Manjunath Kamath

Biography

B MANJUNATH KAMATH (born 1972) took a BFA from the Chamarajendra Academy of Visual Arts, Mysore (1989-1994) and was artist in residence at the School of Art & Design, University of Wales, Cardiff (2002). Kamath has held three solo exhibitions: ‘About Something’ (Shridharani Gallery, New Delhi, 1996), ‘Something Happened’ (Gallery Espace, New Delhi, 2006), and ‘108 Small Stories’ (Gallery Espace, New Delhi, 2007). Kamath has presented his work in numerous group shows and been invited to participate in a number of curated exhibitions, both in India and overseas. These include ‘Hybrid Trends’ (Hangaram Museum, Seoul, 2006), ‘Telling It Like It Is: The Indian Story’ (Cork Street Gallery, London), ‘Emblems and Urban Regeneration’ (Garnier Contemporary Arts, Air Gallery, London, 2007), ‘Fact and Fiction’ (SW1 Gallery, London, 2007), ‘Reading Paint’ (Gallery SoulFlower, Bangkok, 2007), ‘Chaos in Order’ (29 Hang Bai, Hanoi, 2008), ‘The Ethics of Encounter’ (Gallery SoulFlower, Bangkok, 2008), and ‘Reclaim/ Recite/ Recycle’ (Travancore House, New Delhi). Kamath was invited to participate in the major global exhibition, ‘Thermocline of Art – New Asian Waves’, curated by Wonil Rhee (ZKM, Karlsruhe, 2007). He has also shown his work at ARCO Madrid (2009). Kamath also works on new-media installations, combining animation, video and sculpture.


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Baiju Parthan

Biography

BAIJU PARTHAN (born 1956) took a BSc in botany and embarked on an engineering degree before escaping the sciences as well as his native Kerala. Enrolling for a BFA in Painting at the Goa College of Art, he arrived there at the height of the hippie counterculture. Parthan�s lifelong passion for cosmography, Buddhist mandalas, Jungian psychoanalysis, and shamanism originates in this period. Migrating to Bombay, Parthan joined The Times of India group as an editorial artist, working mainly for The Illustrated Weekly of India, which nurtured his literary, philosophical and artistic interests. Soon, he embraced the life of the independent artist, developing both his painting and his new-media projects, these latter being unveiled with a groundbreaking exhibition, �Brahma�s Homepage and Other Cyber Stuff (Gallery Lakeeren, Bombay, 2000). While translating his concern with pervasive global media flows from the digital to the painterly context, Parthan pioneered the trend that Nancy Adajania has described as �new mediatic realism�. Parthan has participated in numerous curated exhibitions, including �Under Construction� (Japan Foundation, Tokyo, 2002) and �ZOOM!� (co-curated by Nancy Adajania and Luis Serpa, Culturgest Museum, Lisbon, 2004). Ranjit Hoskote�s book on the artist, Baiju Parthan: A User�s Manual, was published by Afterimage, Bombay (2006).


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G. R. Iranna

Biography

G R IRANNA (born 1970) took an MFA in Painting from the College of Art, New Delhi (1994) and was artist in residence at the Wimbledon School of Art, London (1999-2000). Having studied in Bijapur, Gulbarga, and New Delhi, he has always carried with him, his early memories of growing up on a farm with him, and evolved a richly informed appreciation of Virashaiva religious poetry, Adilshahi architecture, and contemporary global art. These varied interests inform his paintings and sculptures, as well as his experiments with the installation form. Since the mid-1990s, Iranna has held 13 solo exhibitions of his work with galleries in New Delhi, Mumbai, London, Munich, Singapore, and Hong Kong, among other cities. He has shown in numerous group shows and been invited to participate in curated exhibitions, including, most recently, �Paths of Progression� (Bodhi Art and Saffronart, New Delhi and Bombay, 2005), �The Human Figure� (curated by Marta Jakimovicz, Threshold Art Gallery, New Delhi, 2006), and �Zip Files� (curated by Ranjit Hoskote, Foundation B&G, Bombay, 2009). In 2007, Lund Humphries, London, and Mapin Publishing, Ahmedabad, collaborated to publish a book on his work, Ranjit Hoskote�s The Dancer on the Horse: The Art of G R Iranna.


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Tina Bopiah

Biography

TINA BOPIAH (born 1943), having been born into one military family and married into another, has led an itinerant life in cantonment zones across India. Brought up in an atmosphere that emphasised creativity in diverse fields, she turned her attention to the visual arts during a decade spent mainly in Kashmir. Beginning with representational concerns, she quickly developed an idiosyncratic vocabulary of images and experimented with heterodox techniques and media, using ink, crayon, turmeric and coffee, before embracing her chosen egg tempera. Bopiah has held three solo exhibitions (Art Heritage, New Delhi, 1998 and 2000, and the Pundole Art Gallery, Bombay, 2002). She has been invited to exhibit at numerous group shows and curated exhibitions, including, most recently, ‘Masterpieces from the Alkazi Collection’ (Art Heritage, New Delhi, 2002) and ‘Strangeness’ (curated by Ranjit Hoskote, Anant Art Gallery, Calcutta, 2006). In 2002, Bopiah designed and painted the backdrops for the staging of Gulzar’s plays at the Tata Theatre, National Centre for Performing Arts, Bombay. Essays on Bopiah’s art include Ranjit Hoskote’s ‘Phrasing a New Colloquial of Images’ (Art Heritage exhibition catalogue, New Delhi, 1998) and Nancy Adajania’s ‘A Sister Grimm for our times’, in Art India Vol. 4 No. 4 (2000).


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