By Vrinda Saxena
Enter Galerie Isa at Fort, Mumbai, and youll be dazzled by the bespoke carpets adorning its walls. Move forward to feel them and you will be even more surprisedthey are not carpets! The walls of this famous art gallery are now adorned with paintings of carpets, the works of Spanish artist Antonio Santin.
Santin, who refers to the paintings as “sculptural paintings,” is famous for his hyper-realistic, dramatic paintings, depicting skilfully executed ornamental tapestries. He is known to invoke drama in his art by his immediate and physical interaction with materials. ”Its like the English idiom- to sweep something under the rug. I wanted to use paintings as a metaphor for secrets, Antonio said in an interview with Indian Express.
An ongoing show at Galerie Isa titled ‘Modelling Matter’ brings to display Santin’s work and the work of Mexico-based sculptor Aldo Chaparro. The show aims to present how different approaches to the arts can play different tricks on the perception of viewers.
Chaparro, who is well known for his distorted stainless steel sculptures explained how he creates the desired effect in his sculptures by battering and folding thick sheets of metal. “I I attempt to recreate the reaction which the lyrics of a song we recognise (I never use song lyrics that are not very popular) evoke in us,” Chaparro said in an interview with Rosemary Salum.
Two of Chaparro’s works can be viewed at ’Modelling Matter’, which he describes as ”photos of a moment.” While one is a stainless steel sculpture, another is gold leaves on canvas to create an illusion of three-dimensionality.
Santins painted carpets are images whose sources are photographs of carpets on the floor. The depicted carpets, made by squeezing threads of colour out of a syringe-like contraption, reach out to the viewer due to their dramatically raised surfaces, thereby forming a peculiar three-dimensional dynamic on the flat painting.
‘Modelling Matter’ is on display at Galerie Isa in Mumbai till April 21.
Santin’s work, an oil painting, is based on photographs of carpets on floors. Credit: Galerie Isa. Santin is known for his realistic and dramatic paintings depicting tapestries. Credit: Galerie Isa.