Daijiworld Media Network—Bangalore

Bangalore, Oct 17: ‘Sounds of Silence’, a solo exhibition of paintings by Zena Colaco, will be held at Chitrakala Parishad, Bangalore, from Monday October 20 to Sunday October 26.

The exhibition will be inaugurated on Monday at 10.30 am. Dr D K Chowta, writer and general secretary, Chitrakala Parishad. Prof K E Radhakrishna, vice-president, Chitrakala Parishad, will be the guests of honour. Featuring a unique collection of 40 paintings, the exhibition will be open to the public from 10.30 am to 7.30 pm on all days.

This is Zena’s second solo show and she had her debut at Orchid Art Gallery in Mangalore in December 2010. A self-taught artist, Zena has not let her hearing and speech impairment weigh her down either in spirit or in the quality of her work. Her artworks are unique, both in the originality of approach and in the execution of it.

A fine silken thread of thought runs through the entire gamut of Zena’s work. It is mostly a woman-centric, nature-oriented, thought- provoking view of the world. We can see the human figures scattered in her work, doing their own pretty little things, giving the canvas a surrealistic feel.

Zena’s forte is in the experimentation with colours. She uses bold and beautiful colours to come up with stunning effects. This enables her to capture her subject at its natural best. Here, in this current series of artworks, she picks up the threads from where she left in her first solo exhibition. In that series she had dwelt on how a hearing impaired person perceives a music-filled world. One hankers for the beauty of the sound of music when one is totally denied access to it. She has continued in the same vein in this series as well.

Through her artworks titled ‘Music on a Grand Scale’, ‘Hope Rises Eternal’, ‘Cosmic Play’, ‘Folk Women Amidst Nature’, ‘View in the Mirror’, ‘Joyful Frames’, ‘Mind Games’, ‘On a Village Road’, ‘Cycle of Life’, Zena has truly succeeded in juxtaposing the various elements of life and blending them harmoniously.