In a major boost to artists working out of the city, two city-based artists have been roped in to showcase their works by noted curators in two major biennales.
Artist Siji Krishnan, whose sepia-tinted imagined nuggets of history in the form of tender family portraits and brittle environmental scenes, have been selected by influential Japanese curator Yuko Hasegawa for the Moscow Biennale that is under way between September 19 and October 28.
While, Mattancherry-based artist Sosa Joseph has got an invitation from another Japanese curator Mami Katayoka for the Sydney Biennale scheduled to take place between March 16 and June 11 next year.
Both Sosa and Siji have had their works exhibited as part of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, whose co-founder Bose Krishnamachari said the Kochi Biennale Foundation was happy to have been instrumental in their selection, as the curators had familiarised themselves with the works of these artists at the KMB.
In a conversation with The Hindu, Siji said she would be taking four of her paintings, An Unknown Family Portrait and three tree portraits (relatively smaller in size) to Moscow. The works had been last exhibited at Galerie Mirchandani in Mumbai. “The works go very well with the curator’s note for the Biennale,” she said.
Sosa said she intended to present a fresh work at the Sydney Biennale. “It will be done based on the curator’s note once they send it to me.”