Important Notice

Irrespective of the size and genre of his works, G.R. Iranna has always displayed a significant measure of boldness in his choice of subjects and the manner in which he contextualizes them. Of late, the artist has begun working with large format diptychs, executed on tarpaulin, utilizing their intimidating dimensions and the rawness of the surface without inhibition. Coherent with the size of his works, are the concerns the artist chooses to... Irrespective of the size and genre of his works, G.R. Iranna has always displayed a significant measure of boldness in his choice of subjects and the manner in which he contextualizes them. Of late, the artist has begun working with large format diptychs, executed on tarpaulin, utilizing their intimidating dimensions and the rawness of the surface without inhibition. Coherent with the size of his works, are the concerns the artist chooses to portray. Unrestrained, Iranna uses artistic vocabulary to depict his uneasiness with current sociopolitical developments.

According to art historian Donald Kuspit, “Iranna’s tarpaulin paintings are implicitly narrative murals, as their often huge size and grand themes suggest. Tarpaulin is ‘a sheet of waterproofed canvas or other material used as a protective covering for objects exposed to the weather,’ as the dictionary says, and Iranna’s tarpaulins have been weathered by paint…The expressionistic urgency and textural irregularity defy the regulating control of the social system exemplified by his rows of muted figures, naked or clothed. Iranna’s images show us the repressive social system and its dehumanizing effect, but his paint has expressionistic urgency and ‘personality’ by way of its textural and humanizing excitement” (“The Huddled Masses: Iranna’s Protest Art”, The Birth of Blindness, Aicon Gallery exhibition catalogue, London, 2008, unpaginated).

In this diptych, Iranna has turned to the trope of blindness to communicate his existential readings of contemporary society. Here, the artist illuminates the idea of the blind leading the blind, challenging the viewer to question their understanding of current global and local sociopolitical frameworks. The notion of blindness in this piece appears to be the inability or refusal to see injustice – covering faces with cloth and filling ears with music. On the other hand, the image also disconcertingly reminds viewers of the iconic Pied Piper, who, disgruntled with the citizens of Hamelin, mesmerized all the town’s children with his music and led them away forever. The viewer is made to wonder if the children in the image and being shielded from the ills of the world or, instead, growing up as an entire generation blind to its realities.

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