An acrylic on canvas by Jitish Kallat

Three high-profile artists — Subodh Gupta, Jitish Kallat and Mona Rai — from Mumbai and Delhi, and two less-known artists from sleepy Bhopal — Yusuf and Mohan Singhane (both with Bharat Bhavan) — were brought together on the same platform at CIMA Gallery’s recently-concluded exhibition entitled Concepts & Ideas. Of these artists, Jitish Kallat is the youngest and had turned into an overnight star after his works fetched a phenomenal price.

It is not surprising that the three artists from the two metros have a very different approach to art from the ones in Bhopal. That was always the case for the former have direct access to whatever is trendy in international practice.

But what is really surprising is the alacrity with which artists from the country’s political and financial capitals have ingested the so-called international trends and produced works that are flashy, clever, very with it and have the capability of flooring viewers by their sheer bravado.

Artist making local call by Jitish Kallat shows a Mumbai street scene. Its format is most striking. It is a pigment print on a long strip — 54.5 cm by 198 cm — of Hahnemuhle photorag archival paper. At the epicentre of the work, the artist makes a phone call from a booth that is a shack.

It is actually a photograph showing a 180 degree view of the road encircled by autorickshaws. The only signs of intervention are the wiry lines stretching from the phone booth to a tree and could easily be mistaken for an overhead wire.

Then there are the two broader red lines bracketing a taxi and an autorickshaw. Kallat addresses his concern with Mumbai’s anarchic traffic in his larger canvases too. These are mounted on brass likenesses of leonine water spouts that stretch out their necks like gargoyles from many of Mumbai’s Gothic Revival buildings.

Mona Rai makes references to cosmetic ads in her canvases that have a sheen like frosted nail varnish. Splattered with paint they look as if fashion models have been at war with an array of eyeshadows, rouge and mascara. Alexander Pope would have appreciated this feminine fandango.

Subodh Gupta is obsessed with surface brilliance. In a painting that could be a photograph he depicts an array of stainless steel kitchen utensils. He has also created bronze chrome sculptures inspired by an array of toiletry for men. These hard, brilliant objects signal a paradigm shift in our world view.

Yusuf is basically a printmaker. Here he exhibited large works on canvas where he used acrylic paint and pencil in which his artistic skills come to the fore. His grey, brown and cream works that are very close to drawings conjure up visions of a cataclysm. Huge structures crumble under superhuman pressure.

The dark chamber with the flickering blue lights created by Mohan Singhane gave access, as it were, into the mysteries of his mind. It was a contemplative work and it made quite an impact like his simple drawings.