The India Art Fair with its splendid display of art is now over. While statistics have not reached me yet, many art galleries have announced that that they were able to sell at least one — if not all the works — that they had put up. For instance, Delhi-based Latitude 28’s solo exhibit of five art works by Dilip Chobisa is sold out. No doubt more news will become available soon, though it must really be a daunting task collecting and announcing news that may have far reaching consequences for global art.

Among some of the international galleries, Andrewshire Gallery located at Los Angeles and Singapore, originally created expressly to promote Korean artists, brought in an interesting collection of works by artists from Asia. Here Jamil Jakaria’s wire sculpture Face to Face and Chai Tae Hoon’s stainless steel sculpture of a coat hanging on a stand and a pair of boots, titled Skin of Time attracted considerable attention. Malaysian contemporary artist Ahmad Zakil Anwar’s solo exhibition, Bones and Sinews, consisted of charcoal-on-paper works depicting the male figure in ‘exacting detail’. The artist’s versatility was seen in the super large image of a man smoking a cigarette, titled Interior. London Gallery White Cube, which represents a large number of international artists including Damien Hirst, chose to bring a rather beautiful creation by this artist, titled Afterworld — a creation of butterflies stuck on canvas.

At another booth Australian Sarah Scout, presented Melbourne artist Simone Slee’s unusual sculptural creations. The Frida Fine Arts Gallery located in Berlin and Moscow, brought in some interesting and colourful work by Jannis Markopoulos and other contemporary artists. Die Galerie from Frankfurt chose to bring the big names — Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dali, Johannes Heizig, Andre Masson, Dietrich Klinge and others. London-based Robert Bowman Modern’s metal sculpture Trojan Horse was a crowd puller.

It was interesting to see that international galleries chose to exhibit Indian artists. ARNDT from Berlin offered Jitish Kallat along with Sophie Calle, Eko Nuroho and Gilbert & George among others. London-based Aicon Gallery, which represents a host of artists from the subcontinent, chose to exhibit some of India’s best known artists — FN Souza, Jogen Chowdhury, Ram Kumar along with some up and coming artists such as Anjali Srinivasan, known for her explorations in glass. Dubai’s 1x1 Art Gallery showcased Chittrovanu Mazumdar in a his new creations, Rameshwar Broota, Ravinder Reddy along with Khosrow Hassanzadah, Alireza Fani and others. Nature Morte as usual offered a wide selection of artists that it represents — Subodh Gupta, Jitish Kalat, Jagannath Panda, Dayanita Singh, Justin Ponmany and others. Jagannath Panda’s Metropolis of Mirage, was an intricate and thoroughly pleasing collage of acrylic, fabric, and glue on canvas.

Some artists were spotted more often. Artist Thota Vaikuntam, with his signature village women, seemed to lead the pack and the largest work was on show at Gallerie Nvya. The gallery with its Pancha Tattva presentation also offered SH Raza, Satish Gujral, Arpana Caur and KSRadhakrishnan. Ravinder Reddy’s popular heads and figures were seen everywhere, FN Souza was popular with both local and international galleries, while Satish Gujral’s inimitable figurative work was seen at many.

(The writer is a winner of many advertisingdesign awards and apainter of repute)