A DRAWN INSPIRATION

Artist Dinkar Jadhav is well-known for his Ashwa Chitramala (the Horse series) paintings. The energy and positive spirit of a horse can be felt through his work. These horses symbolize the passion of love, struggle for living and spirit of freedom. Along with these horses, the Sun and the Moon, which appears regularly in these pictures, illuminate the space with the basic emotions and the feelings of eternal romance.

The colors are bright and gleaming with self-assurance, the brush strokes are gentle yet confident and echoing the spirit of ‘carpe diem’ i.e. seize the day! His horses symbolize the undaunted quest of human-beings for the greatest of the feelings called love. We experience millions of moments in our lives, but never the same moment twice. Pune based artist Dinkar Jadhav, known for his characteristic depictions of horses and bulls, captures such fleeting moments in his dramatic artworks – albeit with the animals as his protagonist. Seize the Moment is a collection of paintings and sketches by Dinkar Jadhav, that celebrate the energy of two animals close to the artist’s heart.

Born in 1973, Dinkar’s experiences in vastly different circumstances – from his village to the bustling city of Mumbai, have hugely influenced his choice of subjects and their treatment on his canvas. While childhood memories of decorating bulls under the autumn sun for the traditional village festival of ‘Bail Pola’, have found a voice in his energy-laden bull paintings, his horse paintings have been born from his experiences of seeing the ‘tongas’ or carriages at Victoria station in Mumbai, in 2009.

Through such intimate experiences with animals, Dinkar witnessed a range of energies that co-existed in them. And hence, when he captures these animals in action, he paints them in the spectrum of emotions lingering in their atmosphere. Loaded with such boundless emotional span, his art can evoke a certain calmness even through horses and bulls full of vigour and intensity. Set against color-blocked backdrops, the animals sometimes appear to be flying – which speaks of their lightness even while speeding at their fullest. Steering away from depicting the wildness often associated with both animals, Dinkar chooses instead, to focus on their positive energy, their sense of calm, their elegance, and their softness.
By channeling his authentic experiences, Dinkar Jadhav creates a micro-universe in his art, that breaks the shackles of time and space, to give us the taste of a moment passed.