Draft:G. R. Iranna

G. R. Iranna (Iranna Rukumpur) (born 1970, Sindgi, Karnataka) is an Indian painter and sculptor. The artist works in a variety of mediums, from pastels and drawings to lithographs, oils and acrylics on canvas and tarpaulin, to sculptures in wood, fibreglass and bronze, as well as unconventional mediums such as ash, mud and brick powder.

Education
Iranna's inclination for art extends to his childhood, when he used to draw with chalk on tar roads. The countryside of Sindgi, where Iranna was born in a farmer family, was a powerful initial inspiration for him. Following several years spent at a traditional gurukul (Sarangamath, Sindgi), Iranna's initial education was at the College of Visual Art, Gulbarga, from where he graduated in 1992 to pursue a Masters in Fine Arts at the College of Art, Delhi. Between 1999 and 2000, he acted as artist in-residence at the Wimbledon School of Art, London.

Style
Iranna's works are inspired by the social, political, spiritual, religious and ecological portrayed in a subtle manner. The artist’s approach has been to express conflict at a visual level, tempering outlooks. Over different phases of his artistic career, the artist has engaged with historically significant symbolism, used in unconventional ways, taking inspiration from twelfth century poets such as Basavanna, Allama Prabhu, and Akka Mahadevi. His works use art as a tool for introspection and communication without language.

Iranna’s work has evolved over various phases with imageries such as the charkha, the donkey, the yogi, the Buddhist monk, blindfolded figures, and the tree form. Early works emphasised the human form as an isolated figure referred to as revealing "his insight into that self-estranging kind of suffering called being part of the masses." The installation work The Dead Smile was displayed at Aicon Gallery in London in 2008. Later works feature Buddhist and Gandhian imageries, including the monk, the figure of the Buddha, the charkha, and padukas. Iranna’s installation work Naavu (We Together), which evoked the idea of walking as performative action, was displayed at the Indian pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale.

His most recent body of work features powdered charcoal, brick powder, and ash on tarpaulin. His work From Ash to Ash, featured in the 2016 Kochi Biennale, was emblematic of the metaphor of impermanence of life.

"Attendant to the distressed ecology of the earth, for Iranna, art remains a powerful tool for introspection and communication without the crutches of words. The fragile core of the earth, and the atrocities against Nature and humanity preoccupy the artist’s mind as he continues to resurrect the poetics of beauty. His works remind us of the exigent need for gentle care and restoration of a fractured world." – Roobina Karode

Exhibition History
Iranna's works have been exhibited widely in India and internationally, notably in the biennales of Venice (2019), Kochi (2018, 2016, 2014) and Arad (2005).

In 2009, Iranna was featured in Indian Popular Culture… and beyond: The Untold (the rise of) Schisms, a show curated by Shaheen Merali and the Alcalá 31 Hall in Madrid in conjunction with ARCO Madrid 2009. In 2010, he was selected to be part of the cultural exchange program Go India, organised by galleries in India and Sweden and patronised by the Emami Group, the city of Gothenburg and the Cultural Ministry of Sweden. In the same year, his work was part of Finding India, an exhibition of Indian art at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei.

In 2010, Iranna was featured in the Kiran Nadar Musem of Art’s inaugural exhibition, Open Doors. Iranna’s works have since appeared in a number of the museum’s exhibitions, including Time Unfolded (2011); New Configurations (2018); Sightings: Out of the Wild (2019); their ten-year exhibition titled narrating from the museum (2020); and Mirror/Maze: Echoes of Song, Space, Spectre (2024).

In 2013, Priya Pall included his work in an exhibition at the Heritage Transport Museum in Gurgaon. The following year, he was a part of the travelling exhibition Incidents of Phenomena, curated by Veerangana Solanki, which was shown in Rome, Paris and New York before travelling to India and Myanmar in 2015. Iranna’s work was featured in the 2015 Festival of India organised by the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, in collaboration with various museums in Guangdong, Shanghai and Beijing. In the same year, his works were featured in an exhibition of Indian art and textiles organised by Akar Prakar at the Musée de la Toile de Jouy in Versailles.

In 2017, Iranna’s works were part of the Festival of India in Thailand, organised by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and the Bangkok Arts and Cultural Centre. Later that year, he was a part of an exhibition on contemporary art from Karnataka curated by Suresh Jayaram at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Bengaluru. In 2019, he contributed a work to the exhibition Alchemy: Explorations in Indigo as part of the launch of the Arvind Indigo Museum project within the Kasturbhai Lalbhai Museum in Ahmedabad.

In 2021, Iranna was part of an exhibition of Indian works held at the Clarinda Carnegie Art Museum.

Solo Exhibitions

 * Floating Verses. Aicon Contemporary, New York, 2022
 * ಬೂದಿ | BOODI. Gallery Espace, New Delhi, 2021
 * The Primordial Ash. Aicon Gallery, New York, 2017
 * Ether Is All That Is. Gallery Espace, New Delhi, 2017
 * And the last shall be the first: G R Iranna Works 1995-2015. The Guild, in collaboration with and at National Gallery of Modern Art, Bangalore, curated by Ranjit Hoskote, 2016
 * Tempered Branches: Recent Works by G.R. Iranna. Aicon Contemporary, New York, 2014
 * Limning Heterotopias: A Journey into G.R. Iranna's Shadows of the In‐Between. Gallery Espace, New Delhi, 2012
 * Thought of the Day. Kashi Art Gallery, Kochi, curated by Tanya Abraham, 2012
 * Scaffolding the Absent. The Guild Art Gallery, Mumbai, 2011
 * Ribbed Routes. The Guild Art Gallery, Mumbai, 2010
 * Birth of Blindness. The Stainless Gallery, New Delhi, Aicon Contemporary, London and New York, 2008
 * The Dancer on the Horse. Berkeley Square Gallery, London, 2007
 * Disorder and Early Sufferings. Galerie Müller & Plate, Munich, 2006
 * King of Clay. Gallery ArtsIndia, New York and California, 2006
 * Early Works. Galerie Müller & Plate, Munich, 2006
 * Threads of Humanism. Bodhi Art, New Delhi and Singapore, 2005
 * Dream and Perplexity. The Guild, at Chitrakala Parishath, Bangalore
 * The Enigma of Departure. The British Council, Mumbai and The Guild, Mumbai.
 * Exhibition organised by Indian Embassy in Cairo, Gallery Espace, New Delhi and Maulana Azad Centre for Indian Culture, 2000
 * In the Shadow of Buddha. Gallery Martini, Hong Kong, 1999
 * Shadows of the Real. Shridharani Gallery and Gallery Espace, New Delhi, 1998
 * Edge Dynamics. Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi & Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, 1995

Accolades
Iranna received the MF Husain and Ram Kumar Selection Award at In Search of Talent by the Vadehra Art Gallery, Bansi Parimu Memorial Committee in 1993. He became the recipient of the 40th National Academy Award from the New Delhi Lalit Kala Akademi in 1997. In the same year, he received the All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society Award. In 2001, Iranna was awarded the Karnataka Lalit Kala Akademi’s State Award. The following year, he received the KK Hebbar Foundation Award. In 2004, he received the Artist of the Year Award at the 9th annual Harmony Show in Mumbai.

In 2023, Iranna received the Society Achievers Award for Distinct Contributions to Visual Arts.

Iranna's works are in the collections of the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi; the Singapore Art Museum; the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art; the Seattle Art Museum; the Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal; the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi; as well as in the David Robert Collection, the Chester and David Hurwitz collection; and a number of private collections in India and internationally.