Delhi artist pays tribute to Salvador Dali

Artist Baba Anand has paid a tribute to Salvador Dali in a new exhibition.

New Delhi: Inspired by extraordinary and bizzare art of Salvador Dali, Delhi-based artist Baba Anand best known for his kitchy Bollywood posters, now uses surreal tarot cards to pay tribute to the iconic Spanish painter in a new exhibition.

Anand, who last showed in the capital in the year 2002, uses six-foot tall paintings on tarot cards appropriately named after Dali`s well-known works such as `Adonis,` `Three Graces,` and `the Mae West Couch.` The solo display titled `Major Arcana: A Fool?s Journey` that opened on April 17 at the Religare arts.i gallery here is scheduled to continue till May 17. Coming back to public arena after a long gap in which he travelled and exhibited in New York and Paris, Anand says his move back to Delhi was aimed at placing himself in the emerging art space in India. For the Kashmir-born artist the love affair with Dali began at a young age and has remained as one of the major influences. "Apart from oil on canvas paintings I have also done a few installations collages with gold and glitter and for the first time used embroidery. With an elephant at the enterance and huge neon signs, it is a truly Daliesque sense in its opulance and splendour," Anand told reporters. Faced with the daunting task of doing 78 paintings the equal of the number of cards in a tarot deck, he chose instead to paint just 22 - the exact number present in Major Arcana a suite of 22 cards also known as the "trumps" of the tarot deck. The trumps are said to be the cards with the most symbolic and divinatory importance. Each of the 22 cards is priced at Rs 15 lakhs. "I have included 10 original Dali woodworks in my show. Dali loved opulence, and gold. I have tried to recreate his magic here. Well Dali has himself often referred to works of other artists like Michelangleo and Raphael," says Anand. In his previous previous exhibiton "Kitch kitch hota hai" in the capital in 2001, the artist had used mixed media to paint and embelish retro film posters with crystals, beads, sequins and other glitzy material. "I have always sourced materials from the local markets even in my previous Bollywood posters I have used local materials," says Anand. The 48-year-old artist informs his next body of work would be inspired by the Manga a Japanese art form of comics. "After living in New York and Paris and exhibiting at several places in London and other places. It have come to realise that travelling is great to build your reference points." PTI