a coat of pink

The venue was Tablu Art Gallery and the occasion; inauguration of an exhibition of paintings by Shan Bhatnagar. This may sound as any other usual gallery exhibition with an all impressive gathering of Jaipur socialites, but one peak into the exhibition is all that is required to have an experience beyond any usual limits. The open surroundings of the roof top gallery at the hotel Clarks Amber set  a romantic backdrop of a dark star studded night with light drizzling for equally romantic works of Shan Bhatnagar contrasted only by a representation of a fresh day light and a clear blue sky in his paintings. "Romantic" in this context is in no manner, drawn from the lineage of european ideological realm of art, but is only a reflection, in a literal sense, of shan's romance with the pink city; its havelis, market and the facades of buildings in the walled city.

Explaining a work of art can be a never ending phenomenon, engulfing endless debates leading to a heightened self interest, as it is aptly pointed out by Lakshmi Lal in her book "My brush with Art", that, "finding words to fit the idea of an art work can border ecstasy". But the exhibition at hand requires minimal assistance for subjective interpretation as the works are simply a visual translation of cities architecture on paper with water colours.

Shan Bhatnagar, born in 1979, completed his schooling in Jaipur, and higher studies from Germany studying international business. it was in Stuttgart that he had three successful exhibitions; Stain glass icons, Rajasthan, and The dancers of India, and after his return to india Shan finally took to painting full time. The area of interest for this young artist however lies in painting the images Krishna in the form of Shrinath ji. It is thus all the more interesting to see the shift from such a religious topic to a more docuentary form of art, with the works developed as reproductions from sketches and photographs combined with meticulous detailing and a little play of imagination, resulting thus in works like the "Sankrant" series and the "Subzy mandi". Although two or three works out of the twenty put on display suggest a hasty temperament and a slight distortion in perspective, they can be easily overlooked when confronted against the beautiful paintings of pink blanket or the bright green gate, which boast of an expertise in draughting and a suggestive use of bright colours with out hampering the fresshness of the pale Jaipur pink, which is consistent in all the paintings against the crisp blue sky.

Shan, in this exhibition, brings alive snap shots of the fortified city giving the viewers a chance to see other aspects of this 276 year old city and shows through his paintings, what is only written in Dharmendra Kanwar's book "10 easy walks" that "there is more to this city then the famous Hawa Mahal or the Amber fort".