Artist Talk: Siona Benjamin and Shanti Panchal
Posted by admin | 7th August 2012
In Ben Uri's latest artist talk, artists Siona Benjamin and Shanti Panchal discussed 'The role of mythology in contemporary transcultural art'. Ben Uri former intern, Amanda Carmago, talks about the night and why it was so special.
Ben Uri was fortunate to host “Artist Talk: The role of mythology in contemporary transcultural art.” Two distinguished Indian artists, Siona Benjamin (Jewish and American) and Shanti Panchal (non-Jewish and British) discussed art and representation with Ellen Premack, Director of the Mizel Museum in Denver.
Both Siona Benjamin and Shanti Panchal displayed images of their artwork and talked about its meaning through personal narrative.
Benjamin grew up in India, was a member of the Jewish Bene Israel Group and attended art school in Mumbai. She later studied in America, where she received two masters’ degrees, one in painting and the other in theatre design. Benjamin later returned to Mumbai as a Fulbright Fellow to photograph around 60 Indian Jews from the Bene Israel Community.
Benjamin’s mixed media artwork is vibrant and full of colour, covering themes of marginalization, violence and war. She developed a visual style drawn from a mix of influences including Indian and Persian miniature paintings, Byzantine icons, and Jewish and Christian illuminated manuscripts; she also incorporates legendary female personages such as Lillith and Miriam with blue skinned deities like Kali and Krishna. The end result is the creation of unique contemporary heroines.
In contrast to Benjamin’s work, Shanti Panchal explores the greater potentials in watercolour because, he said, he wasn’t prepared to accept the conventional limits of the medium.
Born in Gujarat, India, Panchal studied art in Bombay before moving to London in 1978. Using watercolour as his primary medium, Panchal often builds up as many as a dozen layers of the medium at a time. Finding narrative power in the still life of people and the environment, he cites William Blake and El Greco as artistic influences while mixing in his personal “interior vision firmly rooted in Hindu sensibility.” Panchal’s figures have a central marking on their forehead, which is a depiction of Shiva’s third eye or the inward looking eye of enlightenment.
The Spectator’s Andrew Lambirth has described Panchal’s images as “luminous images of great poise and dignity,” and as “rare poetry” that “for a moment even make the viewer think that humanity might be something special after all.”
It was a unique night at Ben Uri, which highlighted the differences in the work of these artists, in terms of texture and tone, and explored their similarities in the context of mythology, culture and identity influence their distinct careers and works.
Amanda Carmargo was a former intern at Ben Uri.
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