Hyderabad’s Qadri Art Gallery inaugurates its new viewing room with two exhibitions
Earlier this year, the Art Gallery of Hyderabad moved into a new complex with more room to host art and cultural events. Now, it is the turn of Qadri Art Gallery to open new viewing rooms at its existing premises in Jubilee Hills. While both these galleries strengthened their digital presence during the pandemic, they also sensed a heightened interest among art lovers in Hyderabad to engage with real-time art.
Qadri was established in 1991 as Rajeshwar Rao Art Gallery by Supraja Rao in memory of her father. An interior designer, Supraja’s love for design and art fueled the growth of her design venture and art gallery over the years. In 2019, Rajeshwar Rao Art Gallery was re-launched as Kadri.
scope for expansion
During the pandemic, Supraja saw a keen interest in art among the home-staying, well-heeled clientele. “With artworks being viewed online, there was an increased interest to visit galleries and engage with art. This partly fueled the expansion,” says Supraja.
The new viewing room at the gallery was recently inaugurated with a show titled I Think You Should Know This by Kinetics, featuring budding artists who are alumni of Government College of Fine Arts, Chennai. Qadri also opened a new collection of watercolor paintings by Hyderabad-based iconic artist A Rajeshwar Rao (not to be confused with Supraja Rao’s late father).
The contemporary, postmodern approach to art by Kinetics is evident in its latest exhibition. One of the extraordinary pieces is a clever paper and wood installation by Yuvan Bothisathuvar, who plays with different colors to give the audience the impression of artwork changing from warm red tones to cool blue notes, as one moves from side to side. walks to the side. Titled The Mask, the artwork depicts how humans change color as they go through emotional turmoil.
Abstract patterns on railway tickets by Sunil Shree, a work by Dilip Kumar Keshavan that appears abstract but hides figurative elements, a series of bird photographs by Anish Kalode Rajan that resemble minute pencil sketches, give the exhibition an intrigue. gives an element.
The group show by Kinetics, which also features works by Gurunathan Govindan, Kumarasan Selvaraj, Saravanan Parasuraman, Suresh Kumar P and Yuvraj Velu, shows the need to make art more engaging for real-time viewing.
The solo show of Desires and Destinations is a humorous social commentary of A Rajeshwar Rao’s recent works. Rao’s watercolors are multi-layered and have gone through several washes to make them look almost like aqua tint graphic prints. The play of light and shadow unfolds in the paintings where he depicts people visiting castles and palaces to rediscover themselves through the journey. Some of the paintings done during the pandemic are masks of men, women and even monkeys, attempting to reconnect with their roots in their fields or farmhouses.
Both the exhibitions can be seen till November 8 at Qadri Art Gallery, Road No. 14, Jubilee Hills.
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