Sangeeta Reddy, Abstract Expressionist Color Field Painting Indian Artist Sangeeta Reddy, 1985

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Born in 1955, Hyderabad, India, painter and writer Sangeeta Reddy migrated to the United States in 1978 and continued her … Read more Born in 1955, Hyderabad, India, painter and writer Sangeeta Reddy migrated to the United States in 1978 and continued her studies in art. Currently she maintains a studio on Santa Fe Dr. in Denver, Colorado and Hyderabad, India, dividing her time between the two. She has been represented by various galleries in Aspen, Denver, New York, New Delhi, Chennai and now, Hyderabad since the beginning of her 26 year career. Sangeeta has lived and breathed the arts from a very young age – her maternal grandmother was a contemporary of the classical vocalist Kesarbai Kerkar, her grandfather a connoisseur of the arts. Steeped in music, her mother was one of the first disciples of the late Pandit Ravi Shankar. Her late father was a pictorial photographer who co-founded the Hyderabad Photographic Society. Sangeeta chose to follow her own path into the visual and literary arts. With seven years of undergraduate work in fine art in India and the US, and a bachelor’s from Bombay University in English literature and Philosophy, in 1985, Sangeeta’s work has developed into a highly individual style of mixed media abstract expressionistic paintings and monotypes on both canvas and paper. The deconstructed calligraphy and vibrant and nuanced color ever present in her work gives the work the flavor of India in concert with a western restraint. Known primarily for her mixed media collages on paper and canvas, her abstract work was conceived from a challenge to visually parallel Sankara’s idea of Brahman in Advait philosophy and has now evolved into a formal language of deconstructed Devanagari calligraphy. Her artistic influences range widely from Indian weaving and textiles to Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cezanne and Pablo Picasso (who were introduced to her at a very young age by her father’s interest in Western art), to her discovery (while studying in the US) of the Taos School of landscape painters as well as the Abstract expressionist painters, painters, in particular, Mark Rothko and Willem De Kooning, Robert Motherwell, Antoni Tapies and Richard Diebenkorn. After having worked for 28 years in an abstract expressionist manner, her latest series of paintings are based on the rock formations of the Colorado Plateau. She was first Inspired By Abstract Expressionists like Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Ray Parker, her style evolved into abstract expressionism and color field painting, Since moving to the US she has become familiar with some of the artistic giants – Georgia O’keeffe, Maynard Dixon, Ernest Blumenschein, Victor Higgins and John Marin, much later of the Group of Seven and of Regionalism. The mountains and plains, canyons and stretches of sky, pinion, sage and cottonwoods. Mostly they were in the form of small plein air works in pastel, charcoal or water color, or drawings from memory or photographs that were more reductive and expressionistic. She has also worked in monotype techniques and in collage. SELECTED EXHIBITIONS Recent Shows: 2016 Fractured Landscapes of the West, BMOCA, Boulder, CO 2014 Erasing Borders 11th Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Art, Queens Museum, NYC 2014 LA Artcore, Los Angeles 2013 Shrishti Art Gallery, Hyderabad, India 2013 Erasing Borders 10th Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Art, 2012 Erasing Borders 9th Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Art, Art Crossings, Queens, the Bronx school for the Arts, New York and Art6, Richmond, Virginia. 2011 “IAAC Erasing Borders: 8th Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Indian Art”, Queens Museum of Art, Queens, New York, Aicon Gallery, NYC, Charles B. Wang Center, Stony Brook and Jorgenson Center, 2011 The William Havu gallery, Denver, Colorado 2009 15th Street Gallery, Boulder 2009 Retrospective, Rocky Mountain Women’s Institute, Denver 2009 Apparao galleries, Bangalore 2008 Triveni, New Delhi 2008 Apparao Galleries, Chennai 2008 David Floria Gallery, Aspen Selected shows 2008 Solo show – monotypes at Apparao Infinity, Chennai Triveni, New Delhi, India 2008 Loveland Museum, Loveland, CO 2007 “The Image of Words” Art Students League, Denver, CO 2006 Summer Art Market Art Students League, Denver, CO RMWI Showcase, Emmanuel Gallery, Denver, CO 2003 Solo, Shrishti Art Gallery, Hyderabad India 2002 Walker fine Art, Denver, CO Artist Asia, Denver, CO 1996 One person show, The Gallery, Madras, India 1995 One person show, Gallerie Ganesha, New Delhi, India 1994 Sediment and the Human Spirit, Mackey Gallery, Denver, CO Paintings and Drawings, Colorado Gallery for the Arts, Littleton 1993 Group Show, Mackey Gallery Pastel Show, Alpha Gallery, Denver, CO 1992 One Person Show, Shrishti Gallery, New Delhi Landscape Show, Alpha Gallery 1991 “The West is One”, One West Contemporary, Fort Collins, CO 1990 Contemporary Color, Gensler & Associates, Architects, Denver Mantras across Cultures – solo, Lincoln Center, Fort Collins 1989 “Secret Gardens” Alpha Gallery 1988 “Mystic Echoes”, Alpha Gallery 1987 Chicago Art Fair, the Denver Regional Art Expo, Alpha Gallery REVIEWS KYLE MACMILLAN Denver Post: 2011 “…she displays meticulous technique and an innate feel for color, texture and mark making…” JENNIFER HEATH Rocky Mountain News: “Reddy’s large handsome abstract paintings, with their collaged, patched canvases and their weathered metallic patinas are like fragmented relics of antiquity, of memory and experience in explosive gestures that dazzle the eye. Traditional Indian art is figurative, iconographic and narrative. Reddy’s work easily recalls Indian weaving and color, but she makes giant, deliberate strides away from representationalism, retaining the spirit rather than the form of her heritage.” STEVEN ROSEN Denver Post: “Laying pieces of canvas atop her paper collage-style and painting with a sometimes-thick, sometimes smooth style, Sangeeta Reddy makes attractive, non-representational painting. But then she does something special–she adds Sanskrit text to her work as a design element. At times, there are hints of Asian architecture in her paintings’ curves and crescents. Seeing the beautiful “Dark Tablet, with its white space in the middle of a busily colorful composition, is like being handed the Ten Commandments.” JILL JONES The Coloradoan: “Her work gives a sense of spirituality, a suggestion of religious icons. There is a great sense of inner light.” (Quote from Roslyn Spencer) LEKHA J. SHANKAR Hindustan Times (New Delhi, India): “In the painting, ‘Energy of Darkness’ …energy emanates in the rich colours and the undulating Devanagari Script Her paintings glint and glow with feeling…retain a certain profundity of expression.” SHUBRA MAZUMDAR City Scan (New Delhi, India): “Her abstract concepts have a strong Indian basis and naturally evoke a sort of loose affinity instead of any feeling of alienation in the viewers’ minds….the paintings have their links in an innate love of colour that always captivates the Indian psyche…Calligraphy…finds a unique place in her works…acquires a universal communication channel through art.” KESHAV MALIK The Sunday Times of India: “She is seen concentrating on a body of work in which colour becomes progressively pure and the compositions precise…By a persistent analysis of line and plane, (she) succeeds in building up an architectonic structure…” See less