(b. 1970)
G. R. Iranna’s (b. 1970) paintings manifest existential dualities -- nature and artifice, spiritual and material, permanent and transient, heavy and light, dark and light. Several of his recent paintings depict magnificent blooming trees - the very picture of nature’s vitality and bounty, and symbolical of the cycle of life and death. Dwarfed by the trees, tiny human figures wander below, the difference in their statures underlining their disparities in spiritual, environmental and aesthetic terms. Iranna paints these in a variety of mediums, most often acrylic mixed with ash, coal or brick dust to bring to the surface of his canvases a textural, palimpsest-like quality.
Born in rural Karnataka Iranna went to art college in Gulbarga, followed by a post-graduation from the College of Art, New Delhi. He has shown extensively in India and abroad. Notable among these are ‘Ether is all there is’ (2017), a solo at Gallery Espace, New Delhi; ‘And the Last Shall be the First: Works 1995-2015’, a solo at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Bengaluru; ‘Forming in the Pupil of the Eye’ at the 201 Kochi Muziris Biennale. Iranna represented India at the 2018 Venice Biennale with ‘Naavu’, a large-scale sculptural installation of Paadukas (traditional Indian wooden clogs).
His works form part of several distinguished Indian and international collections.