DILEEP SHARMA
DILEEP SHARMA
Born: 1974, Mandawar, Rajasthan (India)
Academic Qualification
1998: MFA, Sir J.J. School of Art, Bombay; 1996: BFA, Rajasthan School of Art, Jaipur, India
Solo Exhibition
2010 “kunwarji’s Ground” Bose Pacia Kolkata;
2009 “Theatre of Libido” space 355 keumsan galleries, seoul & Gallery Hashimito Tokyo, Japan;
2008: “kunwarji’s fantasy” Keumsan Gallery, Heyri Seoul; “kunwarji’s fantasy”Nowon Art center, Seoul, Korea;
2008, 2007: “Asia belt” and “Kunwarji” Seoul international print, photo art fair-08 & 07At Hangaram Museum, Seoul arts center, Korea; 2007: “Crazy Stills” Gallery 28 in Cork Street, London, organized by Visual Art UK;
“Kunwarji’s Muse” Articullate Gallery, The Yash Birla Group, Mumbai; 2004: “Kunwarji on Paper” Indian
Habitat Center, N.Delhi and Chennai, organized by Apparao Galleries 2003: “Modeling the tattoo”
Jehangir Art Gallery,organized by Gallery Beyond, Mumbai; 2002: “Flash Back” Juneja Art Gallery Jaipur;
1999: “Parchaaiyan” Prithvi Gallery, Mumbai and Juneja Art Gallery, Jaipur
Selected Group Exhibition
2010: “three painters” Nature Morte, New Delhi; the Evolution of the species ICIA, Mumbai
“main bada hokar truck banunga-Kunwarji di Gaddi” Khushii, New Delhi “India Rising ” Ati art Gallery, Delhi;
2009: pink city” (international exhibition) curated by Song Insang at EVE Gallery, Seoul; “THE ART OF INDIA” curated by peter muller at Galerie Neumeister, Munchen; RPG camp Marve, Mumbai; “Living Arte Expanse” at Gallery De Arte, Delhi; Art Dubai presented by Gallery Sun Contemporary, Seoul; 2008: “Sun Rises in the East” Christian Hosp Gallery, Innsbruck, Austria.“Indiavata” Gallery Sun Contemporary, Seoul, Korea; “the series of Boundary between reality and fantasy” at Gang Na Gu, Seoul; “9” curated by Anshuman Dasgupta at 1x1 Art Gallery, Dubai; ART HK-08,Hong Kong presented by Keumsan Gallery Seoul, Beijing, Tokyo; LIVE WIRES” Visual Arts Center, Hong Kong, presented by Art Konsult, N.Delhi & Mon Art Gallery, Kolkata; “Engendered” A South Asian Multidisciplinary Arts Festival, Lincoln Center, New York; “Inside out and outside IN” curated by Dr. Alka Pandey, organized by Jaipur Virasat Foundation; 2007: “Asian Young Artist in Heyri”, Keumsan Gallery, Seoul, Korea; “Cool 5” curated by Himanshu Verma, Lansdown Gallery, Mumbai; “Indian Color” curatored by Euri Seong, Keumsan Gallery, Seoul, Korea; The Art Expo 2007, Birla Art International, Inc., New York; 2006: “Hybrid Trend” curated by Song Insang Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul, organized by Seoul; “Rock”, Gallery Art Resource, curated by Himanshu Desai, Kitab Mahal, Mumbai; “Impression of India”, organized by Pasel Art Gallery, Singapore; 2005: “Present-Future” curated by Saryu Doshi, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai; Tokyo International Mini-print Triennial 2005, organized by Tama University; 2003: “Light Hearted”, Tao Art Gallery, Mumbai; 2002: Invitee at 10th Asian Art Biennale, Bangladesh; 2001: “Gallery-III” Glasgow Print Studio, Scotland, UK; “Edinburgh International Festival”, Glasgow Print Studio Gallery,
Edinburgh, Scotland
Awards, Honors and Scholarship
2008: “Asia belt” Seoul international print, photo art fair-08 & 07At Hangaram Museum, Seoul arts center, Korea
2004: Honorable Mention Award, 6th International Biennial of Print, Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal; 2002:
Awarded by National Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi in 10th Kala Mela, RLKA, Jaipur; 2002, 99: Merit
Certificate, 5th & 4th Kochi International Triennial Exhibition Kochi, Japan; 2001: “Artist Residency” at
Glasgow Print studio, Scotland, UK; “Bendre–Husain Scholarship” Bombay Art Society, Mumbai; 2000, 98:
All India Award, Art Society of India, Mumbai; 1999, 97: All India Award, South Zone Cultural Center,
Nagpur; 1998: “State Award”, Maharashtra; “State Award”, Lalit Kala Academy, Rajasthan, Jaipur
Art Camps, Workshops and Many Public and Private Collections in India and Abroad.
Artist Lives and works in Mumbai.
Dileep Sharma
Born in Mandawar, Rajasthan India 1974, He received B.F.A. at Rajasthan School of Art, Jaipur, Painting, 1996 and M. F. A. at Sir J.J. School of Art, Bombay, Print Making, 1998. He held tens of solo exhibition including Kunwarji , SIPA at the Seoul Arts Center, Seoul, presented by Turmeric Earth, Crazy Stills , Gallery 28 in Cork Street, London, organized by Visual Art uk, Kunwarjis Muses , Articullate Gallery, The Yash Birla Group, Mumbai 2007. and tens of group exhibition including Indian Color Curatored by Euri Seong, Keumsan Gallery, Seoul, Korea 2007. Recently he awarded Honorable Mention Award, 6th International Biennial of Print, Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal 2004 and Awarded by National Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi in 10th Kala Mela, RLKA, Jaipur 2002.
Kunwarji’s Muses, a suite of recent watercolor paintings by Dileep Sharma, is a unifying process of global modernity; a paradigm provoked by the crisis of human identity in the age of virtuality and regime-change.
Kunwarji, the artist’s pseudonym, is a superimposed folksy hero, who prefers to hang out in an interstitial zone bordered by religious symbolisms, ethnic mythologies and urban-pop aesthetics. He is the sole protagonist to witness the assimilation of overwhelming, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omnivorous culture of images that spans the globe, into his own brand of potential imagery, to which his muses belong.
Although fashionable, flamboyant and glamorous totems of the contemporary, pulsating with sexual energy, Kunwarji’s Muses refuse to conform to their stereotypes. They are personifications of intellectual, political, emotional, and spiritual variables of an artist’s odyssey through the matrix of folk and popular cultural traditions.
The White, provided as a dramatic backdrop for the images, acknowledges this new kinetic flow of imagery and generates its own momentum that entices the mesmerized viewer to take a plunge into another enchanting image. Artist’s scintillating manner of cropping the images and fragmenting the motifs is almost tantamount to performing an act of defiance and reflects the harsh, predatory urban experience.
The generated imprints of artist’s psyche are idiomatic expressions of the modernist vocabularies and globalist idiosyncrasies. For instance, African Safari, a dusky model wrapped with flowers along with various relevant motifs, mounted on fragmented palms, is a satirical manifestation of the modern-day world full of advertisements, media hype, promotional gimmicks and fleeting fames. The Mascot is a conjunction of current state of regime changes and transitions in patriarchal society and gender roles, which artist delights to symbolize via tomboy cavorting on the back of an anthropomorphized boar, iconic of Varha from creation mythology, who once resurrected the earth from deluge and established the new cycle of life.
Another muse, portraying a beautiful damsel lost in the thoughts of her beloved, is the modern day transformation of the Princess Marooni from “Dhola Marooni”, a romantic folk tale of Rajasthan. Likewise, artist muses upon Yogini, a multi-faceted female from Hindu mythology, who embodies an array of archetypical energies of the divine. She is dedicated to the pursuits of spiritual knowledge and mystical insight and is an associate of Durga, a Hindu Diety. Yogini represents forces of vegetation and fertility, illness and death, yoga and magic.
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