The Gallerina Visits India

I wish - my trip to India to attend a wedding has been canceled due to the unfortunate fact that my brother-in-law could not obtain a Visa. Regardless of your purpose for traveling to India you need a Visa, and while for us lucky Americans its only an application, a few forms of ID, and of course a check away, for my brother-in-law who is originally from Pakistan its very nearly impossible for him to go. He applied very, very early knowing that it would take longer for his application to get processed, even had the bride's father (she is his cousin) contact someone at the Embassy personally, and still could not get a Visa. Its truly unfortunate how relations between these two countries are so heavily influenced by their history that he can't even go there, with his American wife and child (and two sisters-in-laws), to celebrate a family wedding. *sigh*

However, India's culture can come to me in bits and pieces here in the US - and my gallery position at Twelve Gates Gallery in Olde City, Philadelphia has provided me with recent exposure to one of their master painters, Prokash Karmakar. Just this week I finished hanging his solo show and am very excited for our opening on First Friday (the first Friday of every month, all the galleries stay open late). His smaller works resonate with Picasso and Matisse, however its his large canvas paintings that really get my heart going:

 

Landscape (2001) Acrylic on Canvas, 38" x 49"

Photographs don't do justice to the actual work; his painting technique imparts incredible but subtle texture throughout the entire image. The moment I unrolled the two canvases we received I wanted them. Too bad their $5000 price tag is ever so slightly way out of my league. However, in the past month we've started bringing in art from lesser known South Asian artists and now have a fairly extensive collection of more affordable pieces that we've been selling as quickly as we're importing them in. In fact, I've just started my own little art collection thanks to said smaller works (and my employee discount, of course).

Persian Miniature Painting

We received approximately 30 of these Persian Miniature Paintings and I got first dibs; the one above is one of four that I purchased. The details are incredible, I can only imagine how thin the paintbrush was - one hair? three? The gold paint is pretty luminous and brightens the entire composition. I'm pretty obsessed, and must figure out how to frame them asap. Art + two kittens = increased possibility of destruction.