Indian art: Meet the masters of popular aesthetics
These artists form the bulwark of the market and include well-known names with a consistent body and quality of work. To the public, they represent the face of Indian art without having to carry the burden of social engagement, thereby, believing in art for its own sake.
Curated By: Kishore Singh
Romancing the middle class
NAYANAA KANODIA (b. 1950)
Kadabari’s Joyride
Oil on canvas
48 x 36 inches
Within the gentle parlour relationships that she paints with her sardonic eye, artist Nayanaa Kanodia has established the changing nuances in society, often allowing the viewer to be voyeur as well as participant in her delightful cameos of social life in 21st century India. Kanodia’s wickedly warm world is recreated using the naïf or naïve style in which she locates her people—couples mostly—within a quaint interior world of drawing rooms and bedrooms, going about their daily chores, resting, conversing, serving themselves tea, and sometimes stepping out of this enchanted world to treat themselves to a joyride, or shopping trip. Bringing a sense of humour that stops short of parody, she mimics the people who surround us, the charming socialite, the cheerful housewife, the chivalrous partner, even perhaps you and me, located in rooms filled with chintz textiles and period furniture. Folksy and witty simultaneously, Kanodia’s take on society is gentle instead of sharp, delivering a rebuke where necessary, but without the acerbic indictment of so many contemporary artists. The artist lets it be known that this is her own milieu that she finds joy in, warts and all.
NAYANAA KANODIA (b. 1950)
Kadabari’s Joyride
Oil on canvas
48 x 36 inches
Within the gentle parlour relationships that she paints with her sardonic eye, artist Nayanaa Kanodia has established the changing nuances in society, often allowing the viewer to be voyeur as well as participant in her delightful cameos of social life in 21st century India. Kanodia’s wickedly warm world is recreated using the naïf or naïve style in which she locates her people—couples mostly—within a quaint interior world of drawing rooms and bedrooms, going about their daily chores, resting, conversing, serving themselves tea, and sometimes stepping out of this enchanted world to treat themselves to a joyride, or shopping trip. Bringing a sense of humour that stops short of parody, she mimics the people who surround us, the charming socialite, the cheerful housewife, the chivalrous partner, even perhaps you and me, located in rooms filled with chintz textiles and period furniture. Folksy and witty simultaneously, Kanodia’s take on society is gentle instead of sharp, delivering a rebuke where necessary, but without the acerbic indictment of so many contemporary artists. The artist lets it be known that this is her own milieu that she finds joy in, warts and all.
