Fabric makes a ludo board, tote bags turn into moving canvases, and panels of black and white break with a sudden burst of colour. Each work pushes beyond what sits on the surface at Grad Show: Unfolding Surfaces, featuring the works of around 50 final-year Bachelor of Visual Arts (BVA) students from Stella Maris College.
The showcase at Lalit Kala Akademi, which will be on until April 27, brings together a diverse range of projects developed over the past four to five months, marking the culmination of the students’ undergraduation journey.
Rather than sticking to one fixed interpretation, the exhibits comes together through individual explorations, with each student approaching the theme in their own way. The works range from personal narratives and contemporary concerns to reflections on culture and tradition, allowing the idea of “surfaces” to unfold in varied and often deeply personal ways.
Across the exhibition, textiles appear in varied forms, with several works using fabric as both the medium and the message. One student presented a “walking gallery” of hand-painted and digitally designed tote bags, featuring endangered birds, inspired by the traditional Kalamkari style, turning everyday objects into functional artworks.
Another showcased a series of kaftan tops designed around the idea of light, drawing from fireworks and the South Indian vilakku, translating these motifs into wearable forms. A third work, a textile décor installation made entirely from scrap fabric, was built around four themes: land, water, air, and animals, centred on sustainability and zero-waste practices. “You can use, wash, and reuse them. It was a zero-waste project, not even a single piece of fabric was wasted,” says the Srisha, the artist.
Colour often plays a central role in artworks, but in artist Vasudha Shankar’s series of five mixed-media panels on canvas, black dominates the surface, with only a hint of colour in the centrepiece. Titled ‘Gaze and Spectatorship’, the work looks at the idea of gaze — both male and female, not always in a perverted sense — before extending into women’s issues like harassment and assault, and the narratives that form around them. The central panel stands out as the only one with colour, breaking the monotony. As Vasudha justifies it, “People basically build rumours upon a story — I know what the truth is, you know what the truth is. But when something like harassment or assault takes place, a lot of rumours and narratives are built around it.”
Art can also act as a way of passing down culture, especially when certain traditions are rarely documented. One such work is a picture book series inspired by Kalamezhuthu, particularly Bhadrakali Kalamezhuthu, a traditional ritual art form from Kerala. “I did my research paper on Kalamezhuthu, and there was only one book, it’s not something that children would understand, so I wanted to make it for children,” says Anjhali, the artist.
Overall, the exhibits offer food for thought, as each piece continues to unfold beyond what catches ones eye.
This story is reported by Raksha Maalya RV