Born in 1970, in Sindgi, Bijapur, Karnataka, finished M.F.A. Painting from College of Art, New Delhi in 1994 & in 1999-2000 was the Artist-in-residence at Wimbledon School of Art, London. Has won several awards from 1990:4th All India Exhibition SCZCC, Nagpore, 1991-1992 College of Visual Art, Gulbarga & All India Exhibition Mysore Dasara, Mysore, 1993 ‘In Search of Talent’ M.F. Hussain & Ram Kumar selection Award by Vadhera Art Gallery, New Delhi, Bansi Parmimu Memorial Committee & Delhi College of Art, New Delhi, 1997 AIFACS Award, New Delhi, 50 years of Art in Independent India & 40th National Academy Award from Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi, 2001 State Award from Karnataka Lalit Kala Academy, Bangalore, K K Hebbar foundation award, for 2002. Has won the Garhi Research Grant from Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi in 1995-1996, the National Scholarship from Ministry of H.R.D., Government of India in 1996-1997 & in 1999-2000 the International Scholarship from Charles Wallace India Trust, British Council. Has held numerous solo shows in 1992 College of Visual Art, Gulbarga, 1995 ‘Edge Dynamics’ at Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi and Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, 1998 ‘Shadows of the Real’ at Shridharani Art Gallery & Gallery Espace, New Delhi, 1999 In the Shadow of Buddha’ at Gallery Martini, Hong Kong, 2000 Gallery Espace, New Delhi, Maulana Azad Centre for Indian Culture, Cairo & Foyer Gallery, Wimbledon School of Art, London, 2001 The British Council Mumbai, & The Guild Art Gallery Mumbai & 2002 Artist of the month, month of May, in Saffronart.com. Has participated in several group shows 1990 Chitra Kala Parishad, Bangalore, 1992 Award Winners Exhibition SCZCC Nagpore, at Bangalore, Indore, Hyderabad, Pune, 1994 Shridharani Art Gallery, New Delhi & Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, 1995 Schoo’s Gallery, Amsterdam, Holland, 1998 The Guild Art Gallery, Mumbai, Vedanta Art Gallery, Chicago, U.S.A. & Gallery Espace, New Delhi, 1999 ‘Icons of the Millennium’ at Gallery Lakeeren, Mumbai, 2000 ‘Black & White’ at Art Today, New Delhi, 2001 ISU International Art Gallery Singapore & Apparao Galleries, Madras. Also participated in many other national and international exhibitions. Has participated in camps in Gulbarga and New Delhi. His paintings are in collections all over India and abroad. Solo Shows 2002: Artist of the month, month of May, in Safforonart.com 2001: The British Council Mumbai, & The Guild Art Gallery Mumbai. 2000: Gallery Espace, New Delhi 2000: Maulana Azad Centre for Indian Culture, Cairo 2000: Foyer Gallery, Wimbledon School of Art, London 1999: ‘In the Shadow of Buddha’ at Gallery Martini, Hong Kong 1998: ‘Shadows of the Real’ at Shridharani Art Gallery & Gallery Espace, New Delhi 1995: ‘Edge Dynamics’ at Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi and Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai 1992: College of Visual Art, Gulbarga Group Shows 2001: ISU International Art Gallery Singapore, 2001: Apparao Galleries, Madras. 2000: ‘Black & White’ at Art Today, New Delhi 1999: ‘Icons of the Millennium’ at Gallery Lakeeren, Mumbai 1998: The Guild Art Gallery, Mumbai 1998: Vedanta Art Gallery, Chicago, U.S.A. 1998: Gallery Espace, New Delhi 1997: Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai 1995: Schoo’s Gallery, Amsterdam, Holland 1994: Shridharani Art Gallery, New Delhi 1994: Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai 1992: Award Winners Exhibition SCZCC Nagpore, at Bangalore, Indore, Hyderabad, Pune 1990: Chitra Kala Parishad, Bangalore (Also participated in many other national and international exhibitions) Camps 1997: 9th Triennial India 1997 International Artist Camp by Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi 1993: International Painting & Sculpture Symposium, Gulbarga Collections National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi. Bharat Bhawan, Bhopal. Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi. Personal collections at Mumbai, Delhi, Hong Kong, Germany, Holland, Austria, Croatia and Chester Herwitz in U.S.A. "SHADOWS OF THE REAL" Entwined in the very roots of being are the impalpable sources of sensations. The body is a tangible instrument that experiences and breaks the opaqueness of the world. The self too has a body, its exterior dimension, it’s surface, a biological anchor, and then a mind, it’s interior dimension, the invisible infinite space, it’s abstract force, treasurer of indelible impressions, innumerable associations and memories. The mind and body or the inside-outside dialogue is an ongoing one, always undergoing transformation. The antithetical structure of the world intrigues G.R.Iranna because of the inherent dualities that govern life. Although it is rather difficult to comprehend why, if life is movement, one seeks stillness, if a journey, one seeks destination and if transient, one desires permanence, it does appear that just as the past and present that engage Iranna’s sensibilities. The artist sees the self through confusion, contradictions, narcissism, caught up in things, front and back, a past and future and it is from this mingled feeling of pain and pleasure that Iranna’s art flows. His recent paintings reflect forms and images that belong to an agrarian environment – the earth space; it’s energy, agricultural tools, the ox, all recurrent in his art. They do not reflect the urban industrial city where he lives and works now. Iranna belong to the village of Sindgi in Bijapur, to an ancestry of farmers. Early in his life, he was religiously and culturally oriented to the Lingayat sect as a believer of Lord Shiva. He moved from attending a Sarangmath in Sindgi to a Fine Art school in Gulbarga and from there to Delhi to attend the Master’s Program in painting at the College of Art. Amidst the urban social fabric, the old and new values stood in sharp disparity. The complacency of the past and the challenge of the future equally nourished his life, helping him break frontiers between the visible and the invisible and between secret and knowledge. G.R.Iranna’s work seems to be conceptually engaged in the dialectics of immobility and transition and these may be the thoughts that predominantly surface in the art of one who migrates from where he is rooted to where he is temporarily placed. The dim and distant is revived by an intimate contact, while the immediate environment is removed from the here and now. Iranna draws the world of which he is the center. His paintings are a private landscape illuminated by long drawn recollections, by shadows of the real. Farming and fertility images have an overwhelming presence in his work. As if extolling the earth, his pictorial space transforms into expansive field tracts, muddy ochre and browns, representing the sensuousness of the earth’s body often bathing in yellow sunlight. The plough is the most sensuous tool for Iranna as it splits open the body of the earth to participate in the regenerative process. It is as the farmer’s son perhaps that he realises the importance of fertility more than others, worshipping both the fertile land and the tools of his livelihood. The opposing energies of procreation have been fused in our traditional images of Shiva and Shakti and the linga and yoni, which are strong, potent visual symbols, sacred and ritualized. Iranna draws upon such iconographical sources but personalises them. He speaks through himself. As the experiencing self, he appears naked, standing or reclining without moving – still and rooted within his territory, gazing into images that soothe him. In his earlier works, the self was so monumental and rock-like that it was compressed or fitted into space either through truncation or fragmentation. There was a dislodgment felt by the figure in an undefined space. The recent works seem to represent figure-space reversal, the figure reducing in size and the world in terms of space extending beyond. Even the emblematic tool has become larger and psychologically more important than the figure. A preference for large canvases and tarpaulins highlight a painterly approach, where the pigment itself transforms into a sensual substance, swirling to represent the action and the object as well. Using the process of over layering, Iranna animates the surface with riotous profusion, evoking a range of tactile values. His is a volatile libidinal energy at work that enjoys the carnal presence of the paint as it carries overpowering sensations and the raw feel of the erotic. It is rather interesting to see how convincingly he articulates the interplay of surface and depth on a two dimensional format. Through colour, he creates visual illusions of cavities, paint raining on the canvas, the earth opening it’s mouth or stimulating a small cut in the canvas making it’s dark interior visible, with things sprouting out from within, revealing simultaneously the inside and the outside. This is beautifully achieved in the painting captured in the magic of the nocturnal light where amidst the verticality of the lit candles carefully organised in space, one’s attention is fully drawn to a dense black shape that suggests a mysterious opening to enter into, while the golden flat shape juxtaposed becomes suggestive of it’s lid. The theatricality of the figure and the object is in it’s positioning, more often than not creating between them a magnetic pull. One sees a figure placed on the magnified blade of the tool, the sliced piece of which is pushed above and tensely positioned. The static and the moving, the strong and the vulnerable, the soft and the hard, the sharp and the round, the delicate and the coarse are contrary forces meaningfully construed to be felt with the same intensity. Often on a large canvas where everything is hard and outlined, our attention is pulled to the strength of a small blue soft form. Visual equivalents of sound, touch and even taste are articulated and made visible. In Iranna’s pictorial world, the self acquires an uninhabited, unfeigned presence in a private space, subjectively projected in signs and symbols that carry within them a poignant nostalgia, made sacred in gold and silver. Images imprisoned deep within, as if unknown secrets, surface to seek liberation. Roobina Karode, Art historian, Critic He currently lives and works in New Delhi.