Mumbai-based artist’s solo show at South Asian Contemporary Art Gallery in Amsterdam, explores memory, dreams, and survival through evocative visual narratives.
Mumbai based award winning artist P P Pradeep is quite excited about his solo exhibition “Mapping The Invisible” that features eight selected paintings at South Asian Contemporary Art Gallery in Amsterdam. This is a dream come true for the commendable artist, who captures the varied facets and shades of life in the most attractive manner with the fine usage of colours in Oils, Acrylic and Water colours. The exhibition is on till May 4th and is already attracting a lot of attention.
Currently on at the exhibition are eight selected paintings entitled “Return Of the King”, “Sterile Seeds”, “Little Dreams 6”, “Little Dreams 3”, “Urban Farming”, “Remnants of Memories -1”(water colours on paper), “Remnants of Memories”-2(watercolor on paper), “Is It A Journey of Survival”?.. Each painting has a story to tell, revolving around varied experiences in life that stretches to wide range of emotions, pertaining to sufferings, anguish, desperation ,joy and happiness. Particularly relating to experiences during pandemic when everyone was suffering due to the lockdown and many lives were also lost and people were quite confined to their lives, scared to mingle or interact with others due to several reasons.
A striking selection of works
Each painting signifies something different that is thought provoking and evocative too. Return of the king refers to the glory and the power of the King, Sterile Seeds refers to fertility and as to how fertility plays a role in farming or in the life of human beings, Little Dreams concerns the dreams of the child portraying the varied caricatures in the cartoon network, the innocence of the child that strikes the chord of every individual who sees the painting.
Urban Farming concerns the farming which is possible in urban cities with space constraints, Remnants of Memories reflects on varied experiences in the past, the good, the bad and the ugly. Is It A Journey of Survival”? portrayed with the airplane in the backdrop of the creepers features the dichotomy of life and survival. Furthermore the highlight of Pradeep’s painting is that he captures nature in its natural splendour, hence his usage of colours are earthly, grounded to the grass root level and fine representation with meticulous concern and detail, creating a lasting spectacle on the vision of the viewer.
Pandemic reflections
Presently Pradeep is working on Little Dreams. Pradeep says “It all started during the covid, when we were all stranded and were forced to spend more time inside the house rather than outside, that’s the time when my six-year-old son took a fancy to reproduce all the cartoon characters on synthetic clay which was not easily available, he used to be so excited when he used to complete it properly, I encouraged him so that he could realise his aptitude.”
Since the clay was limited his son used to produce a particular character and after it was over, Pradeep reproduced it in his painting. “This working in partnership helped me and him also as we could figure out all the work that was done which was quite exciting and satisfying pertaining to the creative instinct and that also opened the world of cartoons for both of us. He asked me draw and figure out all the characters in varied colours, that became quite a challenge for me as it opened new vistas as to how a child would react to any form of creativity, hence the series of Little Dreams started, which is quite exciting for him and me too,”
Pradeep graduated with a BFA with 1st rank from Shree Shankaracharya Sanskrit University(Kalady,Kerala). After arriving in Mumbai Pradeep secured his MFA degree from the JJ School of Art and has become a professional painter. Pradeep is also bestowed with the prestigious state award of Kerala Lalit Kala Akademi(2008) and was also invited to participate in the ASEAN Exhibition held in Darjeeling and has participated in several solo and group exhibitions in India and abroad. Pradeep works on assignments covering a wide range of topics and also works with veteran painters.
