Creating expression through Signature

For artists, signatures identify their work but what about the implication of a signed image? To understand this, a group art exhibition, ‘The Signature in the Image,’ is taking place in the capital‘s Art Centrix Space, curated by Delhi-based artists Pranamita Borgohain and Monica Jain.

The exhibition features works of eight contemporary artists including Kolkata-based Avijit Dutta, Kerala-based sculptor Balagopalan Bethur, Delhi-based visual artist D Priyanka, Germany-based John Tun Sein, Mumbai-based Sachin Bonde along with Ganesh Gohain, Geroge Martin PJ, and Vijay Kadam.

The show explores the impact of a signed artwork, having a concept of how an artist thinks and gives a concrete expression of their work in the form of a visual image.

“This exhibition examines the implications of a signed image. It questions if the signature in a work is the physical signature only or if the image itself is the signature as art as a visual medium,” says the curator Monica Jain.

‘The Signature in the Image’ hopes to spark and trigger greater questions around creativity, while seeking to examine if the artist’s signature is a truth intended to detach from or reinforce the idea of subjectivity.

Talking about the challenges in the exhibition Monica shares, “I think art like other creative expressions is subjective so as a curator when I write to the artists to create new works specially for a group show, it can be a challenge to convey the precise thought and to see how it comes through in each work and then how all works from different points of view come together. The viewer, whether a collector or an amateur is exceptionally astute in observation and the success of the show lies in it and is coming through perfect both aesthetically and intelligently.”

Sachin Bonde one of the artists from the exhibition is showing his wall sculpture and etchings prints, ‘poking noses’ - a symbolic wall sculpture, which is a metaphor to represent that how the world economy and GDP and the value of currency hampers the Indian market tradition and says, “ It is concerning that how mall culture has been injected into urban cities that is also spreading rapidly into smaller towns, like the one I come from. In the work called ‘poking noses’, I talk about how we are subjected to consume products that are manufactured and branded by economically powerful nations.”

Where as, George Martin P.J from the exhibition work is more an examination of the different forms of imagery, which we are exposed to, and the symbolism and the metaphors that are attached to them. The artists says, “I use a lot of domestic objects and local references as the common denominators of our personal environment. Altering them is a way of questioning the attitudes, fears and unwritten rules, which have formed that environment and our behaviour within it.”