My Sore Drawings
3-14 November, 2010
Bondi Pavilion Gallery, Bondi Pavilion,
Queen Elizabeth Drive, Bondi Beach.
10am – 5pm Daily
These drawings were created during Ben Ponte’s recent 6 week visit to Mysore, South India.
My Sore Tooth Fairy 115x 75 cm Charcoal, pencil and white pigment on paper, 2010
Ben Ponte is a local yoga teacher who has made several trips to India to enrich his art and yoga practice. This recent trip coincided with six weeks of practice at the Shri K Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute.
The focus of this body of work was the street life of the city of Mysore. What is immediately apparent to the Western eye is the broad spectrum of color and emotion, sound and movement that perpetually unfolds on the Mysore streets. Nothing is hidden. All is laid bare. Life and death, silence and sound, sacred and profane intertwine to form an abrupt assault on the senses, forcing the observer out of the witnessing role; participation is compulsory. Under these conditions drawing becomes a potent tool for engaging, exploring and understanding the foreign, timeless and often devastating beauty of this ancient and rapidly evolving culture.
Ben Ponte’s drawings seek to explore the experience of a foreigner’s confrontation with this rich history as it surfaces in the immediate present on the streets of Mysore.
