VIKRAM KAPUR

"Mountain Madness. 108 Meditations"

Paintings Exhibition and Book Launch - 24th October 2024 - 18:00hs

Khotachiwadi Club - MUMBAI - India

The exhibition will remain open until October 26th

Sikkim Himalaya from Jame Pokhri ridge, 2022 - 16 x 21 cm. - Mixed Media on board

MONDO GALERIA pesents “Mountain Madness. 108 Meditations” 
A solo show by Vikram Kapur (Agra, 1955). 

This exhibition of paintings curated by design duo Diego & Alexeja also serves as  the launch for his book of the same name. 

It will take place in the picturesque neighbourhood of Khotachiwadi, Girgaum, South Mumbai, on October 24th 2024.

108 mountainscapes, including some of the most emblematic peaks of the Great Himalaya, as seen by the painter in his yearly ascensions to remote areas between Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh. 

His paintings continue a lineage started by artists Nicolái Roerich and Earl Brewster, but with a more personal approach in terms of palette and contrast; very “Indian”, even psychedelic. 

The colours in Kapur’s paintings do not necessarily or always reflect objectively the topography of the heights, but more the sensations that the artist experienced in the solitude of the wilderness where the light plays an important role in conflating the state of day dream, reality and space travel.  

“There is something so special about being in those regions; the incessantly buzzing mind slows down, the worries of the world are left behind and one is plunged into a purely existential frisson with the vast unknown.” Vikram Kapur

Guest artist Maneesha Chawala has had a love affair with film ever since her mother, the daughter of the iconic artist M.F Husain, took her out of school to watch Luis Buñuel movies. She has accompanied Vikram Kapur on numerous forays to the mountains. Her work expresses through image and sound a fresh view that complements the strength of the paintings.

The exhibition can be visited until October 26th 2024, daily from 11hs till 21hs.

Vikram Kapur is a unique artist who paints and lives in the South Indian Nilgiris hills. An autodidact, Vikram has developed a unique style that ranges freely between genres including land-scapes, portraits, abstracts, collage narratives and nudes. 

Diego & Alexeja are a creative tandem, exploring the limits of art curation, interior design and architecture. Their work can be seen around the world, from Ibiza where their studio known as ChAI ShOP is based, to Marrakech in Morocco or St. Moritz in Switzerland. Their nomadic curatorial expertise has a particular approach to engage on different exhibitions and with different artist focused mainly on their intuition and on the relevance of the projects for their spiritual, cultural and intellectual search.

MONDO GALERIA is an art gallery that was born in Madrid in 2010 and represents artists from around the globe. It has collaborated with international institutions, foundations and embassies in Europe, America and Asia. Participated in La Biennale di Venezia (Venice Biennale) in 2019. Has been part of India Art Fair 2016, 2017 and 2018. And it has presented in Mumbai exhibitions as Man Ray “Views of the spirit”(2017) and Salvador Dalí (2018). 

Ladakh Himalaya from Changthang Plateau, 2021 - 14 x 19 cm. - Mixed Media on board

"Flux"

On Vikram Kapur´s work by Diego Alonso

Somewhere hidden in The Nilgiris Vikram Kapur paints compulsively. A self made artist full of knowledge and studies in his backpack, with travels and stories to narrate from life’s personal encounters on a vast range that touches on peaks from Jiddu Krishnamurti to M.F. Husain. An artist from another time, when being an artist was not a job and university careers to enter the art world were not needed. It was more about feel, observe, perceive - learning through inner knowledge how to render these sensations onto canvas, paper, sculpture or any media that the manifested oeuvre asked for. 

One appreciates the energy and perseverance with which an artist works. It’s exemplary to observe how an adult wades late in his life into Art, making him a young artist with wise experience. This is the case with Vikram Kapur; it’s notable how he keeps up with his quasi-maniac practice. 

Retired from the frantic world of the cities, he can observe society from a sharp peep hole and find refuge from it on the mountains. Those adored Himalayas where he spent an important part of his life during his boarding school days. As a magnet, the hills call him once a year to breathe their pure air at ease, trekking through the high peaks and absorbing the presence of this immense geological majesty - the immaculate sky, the clouds, the colours as nowhere else on the entire planet. This madness of creation is what the artist brings back in his mind to his studio; to indulge, pouring on board or canvas colours that he chooses from the deep depths of his unconscious without thinking. To dance with his brushes in a meditative state until one is over and another and another and another... until these 108 pieces create a prayer, a tribute to the highest of worldly paradises. 

The mountain has forever been in the human imagination. Either real or mythical, it has occupied the interests of almost all civilisations. Think of Mount Meru, Mount Mashu in the older eras of eastern culture or more recent examples, such as The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann or even The Holy Mountain from Alejandro Jodorowsky. Since the so called Renaissance the mountains enter again into admiration by humans; somewhere in between by occidental culture they were considered obstacles in human perception of the earth.

Nowadays the top of the Himalayas - apart from its constant flow of devotees, pilgrims and athletes trying to reach Everest - is still a unique place to connect with the bliss of life. It’s a place to escape from daily routine and to touch, if possible, the breath of God. Nobody remains indifferent to the magnitude of these mountain ranges. 

Let’s leave all the other mountains (real or imaginary) behind.
Far from the allegorical drama of Caspar David Friedrich, the small format mountain paintings of Vikram Kapur depict an introspective world oscillating between realism and hallucination, with spasms of colour that seem to be taken from Robert Rauschenberg or Andy Warhol’s pop screens but are actually seen in the heights of the mountains at certain hours of dusk or dawn. When he uses unreal\surreal colouring this instead helps him to transmit in a better way the actual feeling that he holds in his memory about that specific moment. It’s a play that builds up, and we are not in front of a simple mind but an elevated, peaceful and mature, overall free spirited one, comparable only with a library or an emotional encyclopaedia. The track walked is long, what he carries is light, but what he leaves for us in this series of paintings is profound and joyful.

Kumaon Himalaya, Panchachuli 1 & 2 from Munsyari 2022 - 16 x 90 cm. - Mixed Media on  board

“Where can one have such joy as when the sun is upon the Himalayas,
when the blue is more intense than sapphires,
when from the far distance, the glaciers glitter as incomparable gems”

NICHOLAS ROERICH

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