Red Earth

Jaidev Tripathy’s practice as an architect feeds into his work as an artist working in different mediums, creating rich and evocative works using the medium of drawing and digital rendering. His eye wanders from the spartan modernist architecture of Ahmedabad to its densely built fabric as seen through the lens of the Kite Festival. Another more definitive series presents the artist’s wandering through the multiple cities of Delhi: from the hustle and bustle of the Pahadganj bazaar to the going-ons of an unknown street in Mehrauli; and the concrete landscape of Nehru Place. The most powerful work in this series Death Row pours corrosive satire on the utopian Centra Vista Redevelopment Project. The artist’s juxtaposition of funeral pyres and the state of medical emergency coalesced with the grandiose ideas of power and politics creates an arresting image,  effectively criticising the Project. 

The works are experimental in their form and content, and use a very individualistic idiom. The artist’s musings on the city and interspersed with his personal observations and experiences of the pandemic; making this body of work multi-layered and very relevant to contemporary circumstances.

At the crossroads of the variant realms of religion and health, several visual traditions in India portray divinities vanquishing disease. The cult of “disease goddesses” is prevalent across the land, with regional variations : be it the classical Hariti, and later - the now very popular Shitala; or her southern counterpart Mariyamma, to name a few. 

This series of six works, executed in the Jaipur school style, portrays the divinites eradicating disease, personified by demons. Hanuman, Vishnu and Shakti: this powerful trinity protects us from deadly  diseases by vanquishing demons (their bodies, replete with pustules, showing clear symptoms of disease). 

As we encounter disease and death at close quarters during this tumultuous time, we hope that this series of small format paper works can rekindle hope and bring in some positive energy.

Welcome to Art @ Red Earth!

Our collection spans multiple art mediums and balances contemporary art practices with traditional forms that signify the continuum of Indian aesthetics and beauty. 

Celebrate the richness of Indian art with us, sans frontieres: from classical to the contemporary, from the folk to the urban….!