T V Santhosh
Born in 1968 in Kerala, T V Santhosh completed his Bachelor’s degree in fine art, specializing in sculpture, from Kalabhavan, Santiniketan, in 1994. He then studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts of M.S. University, Baroda, completing his Master’s degree in the same there in 1997.
Heavily inspired by cinema, news media, art history and popular culture, Santhosh’s art is centered on the exploration of present day crises. He uses images from print media, television and the internet to create eerily realist canvases replete with meaning that make strong statements about the general socio-political situation in India.
“The distinctive stylistic treatment, which makes Santhosh’s paintings recognizable without being predictable, subsumes three cardinal elements: first, a mode of representation that has erroneously been termed as photo-realism; second, a strict turning of chromatic scale; and third, an incremental transfiguration of the material, by degree and detail, that is all the more shocking for its unobtrusiveness†(Ranjit Hoskote, “Transfigurations at the Margin of Blur: Recent Paintings by T.V. Santhoshâ€, One Hand Clapping/Siren, The Guild Gallery exhibition catalogue, 2003, unpaginated).
T V Santhosh’s first solo show ‘One Hand Clapping/Siren’ was presented by the Guild Art Gallery at Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, in 2003. Santhosh has since held several solo shows including ‘Blood and Spit’ at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, in 2009; 'Living with a Wound' at Grosvenor Vadehra, London, in 2009; ‘A Room to Pray’ at Avanthay Contemporary, Zurich, in 2008; ‘Scars of An Ancient Error’ at the Singapore Art Fair in 2006; ‘False Promises’ at Grosvenor Gallery, London, in 2005; and ‘Unresolved Stories’ at Nature Morte, New Delhi, in 2004. Santhosh has also participated in group shows like 'Expressions at Tihar' at Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi, in 2009; ‘Passage to India, Part II: New Indian Art from the Frank Cohen Collection’ at Initial Access, Wolverhampton, in 2009; 'My Little India' at Marella Gallery, Beijing, in 2009; and 'Where In The World' at the Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi, in 2008-09. The artist was awarded Kerala Lalit Kala Academy State Award, a National Scholarship and the Kanoria Scholarship, Ahmedabad, all in 1997.
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