Earlier this week I went to a refreshing exhibition of paintings and sculptures at Chemould Prescott Road, titled An Advertisement for Heaven or Hell (a reference perhaps to William Blake's collection of poems titled, The Marriage of Heaven And Hell) The artist Suhasini Kejriwal, who is from Calcutta, had a lovely collection of artwork that depicted a dream-world of insects, animals and plants that bordered comfortably between peace and violence/death. The style in which the creatures were painted seemed vaguely reminiscent of children's book illustrations, and to some extent the works of Beatrix Potter (the artist obviously didn't think too much of this analogy understandably!). However in this cute world were large cockroaches, spiders and termites. The fear and repulsion that one feels towards these insects was softened by way they were created. The cockroach seemed rather friendly, and its body parts so intricately painted, that it seemed as if it was dressed in it's Friday-night clothes. Only the spider's legs were visible, as it was just about to enter the frame of the canvas. However, all the rabbits, rats, and plants around showed no sign of fear. So a potentially harmful creature is ignored by its potential prey. The white backgrounds held the diversity of plant and animal life together and added to the overall calmness of the paintings. But terror could strike anytime.
There was a series of crafty and intricate images of plants that fused into human body parts. The bright colours captured one's attention as did the composition, but did not impress me as much as the paintings described above did. Overall, the exibition, didn't seem revolutionary; you could connect the strands of the works to various past art movements and artists. However, the work is innovate in how it puts all the strands together.
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