Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery

The Rebecca Hossack Gallery in collaboration with Tara Books invite you to the launch of The 9 Emotions.

The Erotic. The Valorous. The Furious. The Terror-Striken. The Pathetic. The Comic. The Disgusting. The Marvellous. The Peaceful.

According to a second-century Indian theory of aesthetics, there is a spectrum of nine emotions that the superior work of art should evoke and represent. This exhibition focuses upon each of these distinct emotions through a startling contemporary visual context: the art of the Indian cinema billboard.

The huge specially-painted film hoardings that dominate city roads across much of India rely on compelling renderings of character and emotion to advertise their wares: heroic, virile men with swords and pistols on the draw; moustachioed faces contorted with red rage; lovers swooning under a glistening yellow moon…

But as new methods of poster-printing and photo-reproduction become more readily available, the hoarding-painter’s art is under threat.

For The 9 Emotions exhibition the renowned South Indian hoarding-painter M.P. Dhakshna and his studio collaborators – Balu, Raghunathan and Chandrakantha - have produced a vivid specially-commissioned series of large-scale images embodying the nine specific emotions celebrated in Indian art and drama. Each one is fixed in an imagined but typical scenario – as though it were the star of its own film. They are paintings of arresting power, drama, and – emotion.

Tara Publishing have produced a book - The 9 Emotions of Indian Cinema Hoardings - to accompany the exhibition.

Please contact James Green at the gallery for more information or images