Exploring the mystique of light

Santosh Verma

As Art is the exploration of the visual medium, light is the primary element for exploitation, Distinct colours, forms, negetive spaces, compositions are realised by us due to the different ways light responds to a creation i.e. the way light reflects off the creation.

Through the ages, artists have used light consciously or otherwise in their creation. Be it the glow on the face of Ajanta frescoes, the stained glass panels of the 12th century churches or even later in the works of the impressionists.Light has always fascinated me and has been my main inspiration. Light refracting from a crystal or jewel, light creating highlights and shadows and the intertwined mid-ranges on laid satin or sand dunes, light glimmering through the bunch of leaves captivate me. For nearly a decade and a half, I’ve been studying the dimensions of light on various surface, texture and objects, and have been experimenting and interpreting its play on canvas. Sunday, July 03, 2005 ¶ 7:44 AM SRB-94 B, Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, U.P. - 201012, Ph: 0120-2606484, India

Environmental sensitivity for the design process

Golconde is also "a dormitory for the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India...designed by architects George Nakashima and Antonin Raymond," completed in 1945 and named for nearby diamond mines. This building is the subject of an exhibition (by Pankaj Vir Gupta and Christine Mueller) on display at the Graham Foundation until May 25, as well as a gallery talk on March 28 by Andy Tinucci.The building is notable for being "the first reinforced, cast-in-place concrete building in India," though Gupta and Mueller view it as "one of the earliest works of sustainable modern architecture in the world, [espousing] the virtue of radical economy and uncompromising construction standards". posted by John @ 1:00 PM

Exhibition Opening and Lecture Golconde: The Introduction of Modernism in India Tuesday, February 21, 6pmGraham Foundation, 4 West Burton Place, Chicago Extended through Thursday, May 25, 2006. Monday through Thursday from 10am to 4pm.

Sited on the coastal edge of the Bay of Bengal, Golconde, a dormitory for the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India, was designed by architects George Nakashima and Antonin Raymond. Golconde is a remarkable architectural edifice, seamlessly negotiating between the tenets of early modernist architecture while addressing the pragmatic impositions of a tropical context. Espousing radical economy and uncompromising construction standards, it proposes environmental sensitivity as a foundation for the design process. Completed in 1942, Golconde was the first reinforced, cast-in-place concrete building in India and clearly celebrates the modernist credo: architecture as the manifest union of aesthetics, technology, and social reform. This exhibition assembles construction drawings, architects' letters and journals, and extensive photographs of this extraordinary building.

Pankaj Vir Gupta and Christine Mueller are founders of the office of vir. mueller architects, which combines architectural research, education, and practice. Gupta and Mueller currently teach at the University of Texas at Austin. With Cyrus Samii, they traveled to India in 2003 to conduct research on the architecture of Golconde. Gupta has taught design studios at the Arizona State University and the University of New Mexico and is founder of Reading India , a study-abroad program that explores the architecture of ancient and contemporary India. He received his M.Arch. from Yale University. Mueller, who has lived in Germany, Switzerland, and the U.S., has taught design studios at the Boston Architectural Center and the Career Discovery program at Harvard University. She received her M.Arch. from Harvard. Copies of Nature, Form, and Spirit: The Life and Legacy of George Nakashima by Mira Nakashima are available for purchase. Back to program listing 2006 Graham Foundation

Shiva Vangara

Shiva's basic foundation was realism and portraits. Then in 1983 when he started his quest for Truth in Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, India - his perception of art changed entirely and entered into spiritual dimension. He had his frist solo exhibition in Bombay at Gateway of India in 1993. Then in Sri Aurobindo Ashram and Auroville in 1995. His inspiration was "The highest art is that which by an inspired use of significant and interpretative form unseals the doors of the spirit." -The Mother.

At present he is mostly busy with his ambitious Hollywood project entitled Fourth Dimension. posted by Shiva Vangara Friday, January 27, 2006 at 7:42 AM