Ajay Dhandre

Ajay Dhandre draws with meticulous detail and highlights his images with sheer, transparent watercolours. He carefully positions these multi-layered intricacies within the spatial white of the paper; the contrast making his line-work appear even more congested – just like the metropolis he is trying to depict. Dhandre’s almost-technical imagery looks like a planned elevation of a science-fiction city, one that is impersonal and devoid of the ‘human touch’. The artist seems to have a foresight into what is soon to happen. 

Born in Nagpur, the artist found Mumbai ‘dramatic’ when he moved there. His reaction to the bustle of the cosmopolitan city led him to capture some of its drama on his surface, albeit with a futuristic take. Critics find the artist’s approach “in terms of robotics and architecture”, very novel. His futuristic Mumbai landscapes like ‘Cyber Village’ and ‘Dream Formation’ depict buildings suspended in air. “We can look up to technology alone to save us,” Dhandre says. “What with the threat of Mumbai drowning because of global warming and rising sea levels, we might find ourselves living in apartments floating in the sky.” 

Born in 1977, Ajay Dhandre completed his Bachelor’s degree at the College of Art there in 2001. Since then he has participated in a number of solo and group exhibitions throughout India. In 2007 he held a solo show, ‘Hyper-Bio-Nano Materialism’, at the Museum Art Gallery in Mumbai. Amongst the most recent group shows in which his work has been featured are ‘Third Life’ at Bombay Art Gallery, Mumbai, in 2008; ‘Millennium Turks’ at Art Konsult, New Delhi, in 2008; Daira Centre for Arts and Culture, Hyderabad, in 2008; ‘Recent Works’ at Project 88, Mumbai, in 2007; ‘Does Size Matter?’ at Art Konsult, New Delhi and Mumbai, in 2007; and ‘Ye Hai Mumbai Mari Jaan’ at Art Konsult, New Delhi, in 2006.

(Profile by Saffronart)