Walking in Dream Time
The landscapes of Kiran Murdia are deeply steeped in the life and times of her home state of Rajasthan, and more particularly, Udaipur and Bundi. Turrets, walls, arcades, nestling in the mountains and valleys, by the side of flowing rivers and fields, or with pools set in them like precious stones, remind one of Rajasthan’s miniature art. That is where the resemblance ends, however her works are not miniatures, nor the landscapes merely the backdrop. They are dreamscapes set in different times of the day and night, inviting the viewer to enter their labyrinthine spaces which blend the past with the present, palaces with roadside cafes and middle class homes that have cropped up among them with the passage of time. They have now become sign-posts to guide her stream of consciousness.
Another aspect that is interesting is that her landscapes are not merely architectural. They remind one of the universal significance of the human being as the creator of unique and yet commonly understood and related to environments. The viewer is invited to take a walk through these spaces of her imagination which are dream-like and yet reminiscent of the concrete geography she grew up in and now familiarizes us with.
Suneet Chopra
Art Critic
Silhouetted against the experimental firmament of contemporary art of Rajasthan, Kiran Murdia, a representative modernist, reflects the influences of traditions of miniature painting in her works. Kiran as an artist of innovative nature weaves the themes that revolve around images and objects of her natural surroundings. Often the compositions are intricate but well structured and well-knit. The obdurate repetition creates a stylistic vein yet the transfiguration is creative - colorful and concrete.
Her infinite love of nature breathes life into the inanimate with soothing harmony of colors. Drawing inspiration from her environment her canvasses surge with life and the resultant view is breathtaking. It is, at the same time, an escape from the mundane murky development of mad age for seeking solace in solitude. Her attempt is to rejuvenate the traditional pictorial idiom sufficed with a contemporary accent.
She is a proven hardy explorer, with boundless imagination. She creates several faces of the landscapes, city scapes, forts and fortresses reminiscent of their ruined glory from several angles. In her present renderings of the various landscapes, she vehemently loads her imagery with layers of pigments using roller strokes. Underneath them lie several facets of the hidden beauty and mystery of the objects. Her colors are vibrant. The palette is as usual the same however the application - redolent and refreshing. Her works are a sequel to her earlier paintings. Here, in these paintings, she has plunged her hands deep in the cultural soil. Her strength lies in her perpetual creativity.
What a debutant young artist and prospective entrant can draw from her paintings and artistic endeavour is to delve deep into the nostalgic wealth of heritage and love for one's own terra-firma. Art need specifics but one needs to register the body heat and scent which is right under one's own feet. Kiran as a consummate artist carries these to her credit.
Through the last three decades by her constant craftsmanship she has carved for herself an abiding niche in the contemporary art scene of Rajasthan.
A.L. Damami
Art Critic
Over the years Kiran Murdia has evolved a distinct style of her own based on miniature traditions of Rajasthan. For years she explored the inherent aesthetic elements from miniature paintings and managed to overcast a pleasing architectural & landscape imagery of Udaipur city with all its milieu . Even today she paints cityscapes but her intimate contact developed during all these years with objects like hills, rocks, boulders, water springs and also flora and fauna of Udaipur has generated new insight into the deeper meaning of landscape, though the centrifugal points in her new works are now accentuated by an abstract delineation. It is achieved through a continuous struggle of overplayed layers employing rollers and splashes of solvents on canvass.
Now her canvases are overloaded with innumerable tactile effects. The warmth of the pigment is felt as a strong physical presence. Their lyricism, flows from heightened moments of perception during which nature take on the aspect of an apparition, hovering between reality and unreality. The tension between factual and unreal lends a dramatic character to Kiran’s paintings which could at times be ironical too. But, she balances the ironic and the absurd with nostalgia, a feeling that has persisted along with her concern for the sensuous as well as spiritual appeal of the Udaipur landscape .
S.N JOSHI
Art is an ideal medium of conveying feelings and communicating an artist’s inner expressions, imagination and creativeness. Kiran’s subject matter is simple and she expresses her aesthetic belief in artistic creativity with miniature impact.
A Journey from semi-abstraction to works inspired by miniature paintings - this is the path taken by Kiran Murdia. An interesting blend of textures, straight and wavy lines and miniature paintings is what attracts us to her works. Her recent works denote a blissful state of mind. One wonders and is curious to know what goes on in the artist’s mind to take inspiration from miniature paintings and make them fly in open space above geometrical forms which look like sky scrapers or at times fields. She composes miniature’s buildings, Rajasthani forts with semi-abstract shapes by juxtaposing them on textured background. Textures are created by lifting the colors or scratching them from the ground, done in order to break the monotony of flat background.
Kiran Murdia, Born in 1951 Rajasthan, has been interested in art since her childhood and studied art as a subject during her academic career. Kiran’s paintings convey her own language of paint and brush subtly, suggestive of her fleeting moods, which she expresses as proudly by breaking the space of canvas. Use of pure and bright shades of colors, rhythmic & straight lines reflects excitement, movement, grace and charm of life. Her semi-abstract compositions are rich in colors, they produce dramatic effects in rhythmic movement. She respects her pictorial space and honors the moment of inspiration completely.
Dr. Archana Agarwal
Prof. Meerut University
Born 1951
ART EDUCATION
M.A. Drawing and Painting, 1972-University of Udaipur
AWARDS:
1971 Gold Medal -Tulika Kalakar Parishad, Udaipur
1974 State Award - Rajasthan Lalit Kala Academy, Jaipur
1976 Silver Medal -Tulika Kalakar Parishad, Udaipur
1980 State Award - Rajasthan Lalit Kala Academy, Jaipur
1986 State Award - Rajasthan Lalit Kala Academy, Jaipur
1989 National Award - National Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi
SCHOLARSHIP & FELLOWSHIP:
1985-86 Awarded Research Fellowship for Graphic and worked in Lalit Kala Academy Garhi Studio, New Delhi
1996-98 Awarded a Fellowship on Expansion of Mewar Landscape in Contemporary Modern Painting by HRD Ministry, Govt. of India
2000 Honored by Mahaveer Yuva Manch, Udaipur
DISTINCT EXHIBITION AND GROUP EXHIBITION
1971 Academy of Fine Arts, Calcutta
1975 III Trinnale India an International Art Exhibition by Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi
1975 Youth Exhibition National Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi
1976, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85, 86 Bombay Art Society Annual Exhibition
1978, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92 National Exhibition of Art, Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi
1979, 1980 Fine Arts Academy, Amritsar
1980 Mahakosal Kala Parishad, Raipur
1985-86 Youth Exhibition at Jehangir Art Gallery, Bombay
1989 Nature and Environment Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi
1989 Bangladesh Biennale International Exhibition at Dhaka
1990 All India Exhibition, Lucknow (U.P.)
1990, 2002 Bharat Bhavan Print Biennale International Exhibition at Bhopal
1991 Panchamrit Kala Kumbh an International Exhibition of Art, New Delhi
1992 City Bank Show, Bombay
1998 Award Winner's Exhibition National Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi
1998 Exhibition of Contemporary Artist from Delhi and Rajasthan organized by Prayas at A.I.F.A.C.S. Delhi and Jawahar Kala Kendra, Jaipur
1998, 99, 2000, 01 Birla Academy, Bombay
1999 Rajasthan Ke Rang-Rajasthan Lalit Kala Academy, Jaipur
2003 Kite Show Exhibition organized by Dhoomimal Art Gallery, New Delhi
2004 Golden Jubilee Exhibition National Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi
2004 Bhopal- Twenty Years Disaster, Organized by Sunit Chopra
2006 Virasat Utsav, Jaipur organized by Juneja Art Gallery, Jaipur
2006 ‘Passion N Compassion’ Group Show at Juneja Art Gallery, Jaipur
2008 Gallery Artchill, Amer fort, Jaipur.
2008-2009 Seventh International Engraving Biennale at ILE-De- France
2013 Juneja Art Gallery, Jaipur
2013 ‘Confluence des Arts’ by Gallery Artchill, Amber Fort, Jaipur
2013 Art Show organized by Nehru Centre, Mumbai
2013,14,15 Jaipur Art Summit, Jaipur
2015 ‘Art Walk’ at Juneja Art Gallery, Jaipur
2016 Group Show at Gallery Artchill, Amber Fort, Jaipur
2016 Appreciable Art Fair at The Art Hub, Mumbai
2016 Jaipur Art Summit, Jaipur.
2019 'Poetically Urban' Group Show by Artchill at Gallery Artchill, Jaipur.
SOLO SHOWS
1972 Shridharani Art Gallery, New Delhi
1974 Rajasthan Lalit Kala Academy, Ravindra Manch, Jaipur
1996 Rashtriya Kala Mela Bal Bhawan, New Delhi
1998 Juneja Art Gallery, Jaipur
1999 Juneja Art Gallery, Jaipur
2000 Kala Mela - Rajasthan Lalit Kala Academy at Jawahar Kala Kendra, Jaipur.
2002 Information Centre, Udaipur
2003 City Palace, Udaipur
2008 Juneja Art Gallery, Jaipur
2010 ‘Solace in Solitude’ Juneja Art Gallery, Jaipur
2011 Art Corridor at Le Meridien Jaipur, Organised by Juneja Art Gallery
2017 ‘Walking in Dream Time’ Gallery Artchill, Amber Fort, Jaipur
2017 ‘Walking in Dream Time’ at Juneja Art Gallery , Jaipur
1986, 2005 Jehangir Art Gallery, Bombay (Two Person Show)
GROUP SHOW ORGANISED BY AAJ SOCIETY, UDAIPUR
1979-97 Suchna Kendra, Udaipur
1980 Jehangir Art Gallery, Bombay
1980 Lalit Kala Gallery Ravindra Bhawan, New Delhi
1981 University Art Gallery, Chandigarh
1982 Regional Centre Lalit Kala Academy, Madras
1984 Karnataka Chitra Kala Parishad, Bangalore
1985-86 Contemporary Art Gallery, Ahmadabad
1987 Jehangir Art Gallery, Bombay
1993-94 Jehangir Art Gallery, Bombay
RAJASTHAN ARTIST GROUP SHOWS
Till 1998 State Art Exhibition by Rajasthan Lalit Kala Academy at Bombay, Delhi, Kolkatta, Goa, Madras, Bhubaneshwar, Chandigarh and Nepal
2007 Kaleidoscope Art Gallery, Vadodara
2008-09 Dhoomimal Art Gallery, New Delhi
2010 Dhoomimal City Gallery, New Delhi
GROUP SHOWS ABROAD
1986-87 Stuttgart Art Gallery, Germany
1990 Kyoto Shiman Gaiko - Kyoto, Japan
1991 Group Show at Kobe, Japan
1986 Sprit of Indian Art Exhibition, Kuwait
2001 Musca Art Gallery, Milan, Italy
2001 Towards Tradition to Modernity at Fulda Art Gallery, Germany
2012-16 Rendezvous Art Gallery, Kyoto, Japan
PARTICIPATION IN ALL INDIA ART CAMPS
1979 Rajasthan Teachers Summer Training Camp Work as a resource Person Udaipur Rajasthan Second Board Education, Ajmer
1986 All India Graphic Camp at Lalit Kala Academy New Delhi & Maxmuller Bhawan, New Delhi
1990 All India Painters Camp at Jammu Kashmir Academy
1991 All India Artists Camp at "Hastaksher" Jaipur
1993 All India Painters Workshop, Kullu Himachal Pradesh at Rashtriya Lalit Kala Kendra, Lucknow, U.P.
1997 All India Painters Camp at L.V. Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad
1997 All India Multimedia Camp at Rajasthan Lalit Kala Academy, Jaipur
1998 All India Painter Camp, Surajkund Haryana at H.Z.C.C. and Haryana Tourism
1998 All Rajasthan Women Artists Camp Shilpgram, Udaipur Chiteri &
1998 W.Z.C.C., Udaipur
1999 All India Women Artist Camp at Jawahar Kala Kendra, Jaipur
2006 All India Artist camp “Wind, Water, Energy” organized by Urusavti Centre of Art, New Delhi at Mumbai
2007 National Art Hadoti Utsav, Kota, Rajasthan
2007 Art Camp by Rajasthan Lalit Kala Academy, Mt. Abu
2008 National Graphic Camp at Baroda by Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi
2009 National Painters Workshop, Jawahar Kala Kendra, Jaipur
2010 Women Artist camp organized by NGO Save the Child at Jawahar Kala, Kendra, Jaipur
2012 Art Camp by Rajasthan Lalit Kala Academy, Pushkar( Raj)
2012 Art Camp by Kalaneri Art Gallery, Jaipur
2013 All India Artist Camp, KhasBhag, Jodhpur
2014 All India Artist Camp by ICAC, Nagothane
2014 International Women Indo-China Artists’ Camp by ICCR, Jaipur
2016 Rangreet- National Painting Camp, Jaipur
HONOURS AND OFFICES HELD
Was elected on the General Council of Rajasthan Lalit Kala Academy as a Nine Eminent Artists of Rajasthan-1978, 1981, 1983 and has worked as Program Committee Member of Rajasthan Lalit Kala Academy, Jaipur.
Member of Jawahar Kala Kendra, Jaipur from 1999-2002.
Founder Member of AAJ Society (Raj).
Retired as Vice Principal, Govt. Girls College, Dungarpur, Rajasthan
WORK IN COLLECTION
Rajasthan Lalit Kala Modern Art Gallery (Jaipur), Jawahar Kala Kendra (Jaipur), Delhi College of Art (New Delhi), University Museum Chandigarh University, National Lalit Kala Academy (New Delhi),C.C.M.B. (Hyderabad), Rajasthan Patrika( Jaipur), R.S.M.M. (Udaipur), National Gallery of Modern Art Jaipur House (New Delhi), Jammu Kashmir Academy, L.V. Prasad Eye Institute (Hyderabad), Rashtriya Lalit Kala Academy (Lucknow, U.P.), W.Z.C.C. (Udaipur), Haryana tourism Artchill permanent Collection, KING OF JORDAN, and in various private collections in India and abroad.