Jammu and Kashmir
(India)
Ganesh Sharma is a very sensitive artist who has carved his niche in the field of art as a Sculptor, Nationally and Internationally. He has not only been contributing to art scene of the Jammu and Kashmir state for the last 40 years, but also played a major role in the cultural and the social activities. He is a high spirited person, a fighter who did not give up on his sketching even while he was stuck to bed for four years, with multiple fractures after a major accident in 1991. He never lets his disability in leg be a hindrance in his creativity. Just like Rodin defined sculpture as ‘art of the hole and the lump’, Ganesh simplifies shapes in his sculptures to their elemental form and brings out the essence of things with his nuances of hammer and chisel. Be it a human torso, face, family, bird or a biographic form, all are chipped, scraped, carved, drilled, polished, filed and forged as a combination of curvilinear lines – enigmatic, gestural and symbolic. There is a magical play of negative and positive space in his sculptures. One can see the way in which the wood is burnt at different places to bring out the tonal gradations. The armature for support, tautness and compression, chiseling and then the stone cutting machine- all contribute in becoming a modelling tool for his movement of lines and highly polished and finished surface of his sculptures. He has made almost 600 sculptures till now in Kashmir devar stone or black marble, granite, sand stone, terracotta, sheesham and deodar wood and even metal scrap.
In the experimental world where nature, land and space have become new resources of readymade and accidental matter available; with new fusion, creative panoramas and radical makeover; like many other Indian artists like Prabhakar Singh, Shruthi Ganpathy Raman, Thejomaye Menom, Jacob Jebaraj, Shailesh BO and AV Ilango, Ganesh has also explored the possibilities in creating abstract sculptures out of random materials by welding them together. John Dotse, Gerard Lami, Corina Lada and Alex Corno are also among the ones who have worked by creating wonders through waste and random stuff.
Ganesh’s creative strategies have shifted from an emphasis on forming skills to an emphasis on ideas- compositions with meanings already hidden in their abstractions. There is a three-dimensional thought process. Monumental force and ambiguity of form permeates through his works which grants them a euphoric life of their own. From the moment, Ganesh encounters an amorphous and uneven piece of stone or wood, it becomes a source of visual stimuli for him, a play of grain, colour, dimensional unpredictability, twist or crack in the materials and bringing it to light by bare minimum and maximum efforts. Regardless of material, in the longing for perfection, one can see how he delineates hundreds of contours. There are explorations through primary structures, permutations of aesthetic, virile, soft, rounded, sensuous, repeated verticals, embracing shapes by discerning the veiled and embedded sculptural form. There is a monolithic feeling in his art too, which survives conspicuously in the work of Henri Moore- solidity of form and further an urge to dematerialize the same multilayered surface and the uncovered mass.
He is a recipient of several awards and honours for his outstanding contributions like Broadway award by J&K Academy of Art, Culture and languages, Distinguished leadership Award from American Biographical Institute U.S.A, Gold medal by ABI USA, National award 1998 by Prime Minister of India during that time Sh. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, All India Art Exhibition Academy of Fine Arts Amritsar, J&K State Award at Millennium Art Exhibition, All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society New Delhi, Bharat Mata National Award by Astrological Research Project and Vishwa Jyotish Vidya Pith Kolkatta, Jammu and Kashmir Govt State award and Gold medal on Republic day 2006, Twentieth Century Admirable Achievers Award, USA 1999, Rashtriya Gourav Award by International Institute of Success Awareness New Delhi. He has to his credit 23 solo shows in different parts of the country and regular participations in various National and International exhibitions.
– MEDIUM, MARVEL STONE AND SHEESHAM WOOD, THEME ABSTRACT COMPOSITION,
SIZE, 15*8*12
– MEDIUM, SHEESHAM WOOD,
ABSTRACT COMPOSITION, SIZE, 30*10*10 INCHES
