The subtle art of telling Goan tales

Eight Goan artists have exhibited their works at Delhi’s Art Explore Gallery for an exhibition titled Short Stories from Goa

In small details — like the Portuguese rooster Galo de Barcelos, garrafa (a glass bottle for storing feni), people in bright print-on-print dresses and intricately carved baroque-inspired gates — Goan artist Shripad Gurav weaves a colourful mosaic of Goa’s cultural, social and architectural fabric. He is one of the eight Goan artists from diverse experiences in artistic practices who have exhibited their works at Delhi’s Art Explore Gallery for an exhibition titled Short Stories from Goa. From Shilpa Nasnolkar’s portraits to Suhas Shilker, Antonio E Costa and Darpan Kaur’s abstract art, the State’s tales are structured upon canvases that may vary in form but their language is a coherent expression of the ‘Goan School of Art’.

“Everyone is longing for the mood of Goa,” says Samira Sheth, art collector and independent art writer, who has curated the exhibition with chef and philanthropist Ryan Semelhago. She adds, “Considering some of India’s top artists come from Goa — FN Souza, VS Gaitonde, and Angelo da Fonseca, to name a few — and have left behind such a substantial legacy, it is a shame that the highly complex and finely nuanced School of Goan Art (we have the Bengal School, the Baroda School but no distinctive Goan School despite one of the finest art colleges in the country and such distinguished artists) goes unrecognised.”

For its curators, Short Stories from Goa is an endeavour to shape the viewer’s perspective of Goan art by placing it on a national art landscape and within a larger discourse. Darpan, who has been living in Goa for the past nine years, says, “I moved here just before the rains. During the monsoon, from my window, I could only see grey clouds filling the sky and merging into the horizon of the sea. It was so beautiful, completely grey. You couldn’t tell the sea from the sky. I try and portray these views in my paintings. It’s meditative but emotive at the same time.”

Antonio E Costa’s abstract expressionism makes his canvases pulsate with that vibrant gypsy energy while Shripad, Shilpa, Viraj, and Manjunath embark on their artistic adventures with panoply of intriguing characters. Suhas Shilker builds on the three notes dominant in the ancient Vedic chants in his layered canvases, resonant with both sound and silence. The canvases shift from one perspective to another, pervading the quintessential paradigms of life and existence in Goa, speckled with global imprints other than its colonial past. Norman Tagore’s paintings, for instance, are inspired by the traditions of Australian Aborigines who believed painting is a magical ritual, ‘dreamtime’ that could bring their desires to life through their imagery.

The artworks are on sale, starting at ₹50,000; on display till February 12.