Spinning the wheel

An exhibition titled ‘Painted Weaves’ by SG Vasudev will be held from February 27 to March 9 at the Art Gallery, India International Centre in the national Capital. The preview of the exhibition will be held on February 26.

SG Vasudev was inspired by tapestries of works by Picasso, Braque and other artists that he saw during visits to Europe.  His desire to render his own paintings and drawings in the medium of tapestry and his meeting with master weaver Subbarayalu in 1995 led to a collaborative venture that drew on each other’s artistic mastery and ingenuity to create fresh, original works of art. The present exhibition of tapestries in silk presents images from several of his series of paintings, such as ‘Tree of Life’, ‘Maithuna’, ‘Humanscapes’, ‘Earthscapes’ and ‘Theatre of Life’. Through this medium the artist explores the eternal synergy between art and craft, tradition and contemporaneity, man and nature, and fantasy and reality. 

B. Subbarayulu has been involved in collaborative work with renowned artists, working with the late MF Hussain and SG Vasudev to translate their paintings into tapestries. SG Vasudev’s works are done in various mediums (drawings, paintings, reliefs in copper and tapestries in silk). He became well-known for his ‘Vriksha’ (Tree of Life) series, which evolved over nearly a decade, turning into the Tree of Life and Death in the latter half of the 1980s.   

He also explored the theme of ‘Maithuna’ (Act of Love) through a series of drawings, paintings and copper reliefs. Eventually his tree grew into faces titled ‘Humanscapes’ and ‘Earthscapes’. The tree is still sometime visible in the series titled ‘Theatre of Life’ and ‘Rhapsody’.

His works are represented in quite a lot of individual, institutional and corporate collections in India and overseas.  Apart from this he has executed a number of murals in different media.