'Urban mirror' reflects hazy image of India

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No Indian could have imagined that garlanded cows on Indian streets, street side flower shops and traffic brawls will inspire some European artist. Strangely, Alex Stewart could only depict such scene from Indian lives on his canvas. It was truly odd for an exhibition titled 'Urban Mirror', to showcase paintings based on the sub-urbs of Delhi.

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Inappropriately titled 'UrbanMiror', this exhibition is on display at the Apparao Gallery of Garden Theatre, Triveni Kala Sangam. The show started on November 29 and will be in display till December 12. Stewart has displayed 25 of his works in oil paints and watercolours.

He had been to Delhi sometime ago and was fascinated by the culture and sub-urban appeal of Chandini Chowk and Chawri Bazar of the national capital, which is quiet apparent in his works. In almost all his paintings one can spot cows, three wheelers and the street scenes.

One of the oil work titled 'at the junction', is a typical traffic jam scene in old Delhi. The painting shows a mad traffic pack at some street cross road. It depicts three wheelers and the rickshaw pullers shouting at each other and jostling to find their way, while a cow sits comfortably in the centre of this mayhem. He has realistically portrayed Indian beliefs and customs in all his paintings. Another of his work called 'your luck is in our hands' shows an astrologer sitting on a street side, which is a common scene in our country. It also shows a three wheeler driver trying to pull a hep looking tourist into his vehicle. It seems to a scene from Steward's own experience as a traveler in India.

He seems to be particularly fond of flowers and garland, for almost most of his creations show a garland hop or garlanded cows or some odd love pair flying in the sky holding garlands. Interestingly, Stewart has a strange habit of visiting a place before he starts conceptualising it on his canvas. He travelled all over Delhi before conceptualising the present series, and now he is travelling regularly to Rajasthan. Probably his next series would feature the rustic desert land.

Besides India, he regularly visits Sri Lanka and he has held many exhibition there too. Sadly his paintings still seem to be a westerner's view, who sees India as a land of snake charmers and elephants. He may be mesmerised by the simplicity of our land but he surely was not impressed by the IT progress here.