A new London art gallery, The Noble Sage, is launching this April with an exhibition of over 100 unseen works by seventeen artists from Chennai in Southern India. The exhibition, running from the 6th April to July 1st 2006, is the culmination of a year's research into the exciting artistic talent occurring in the art world of Chennai, South India. For many of the artists, this exhibition marks the first ever time their work has been seen in the West.

The Noble Sage Director, Jana Manuelpillai, says: "What excites me most is that there are thousands of people in India living lives that are thoroughly different from those we lead in the UK. The Noble Sage will bring those lives here through the medium of art and make them part of our world. I want the gallery to be a portal by which visitors can visit distant lands and cultures, though also I want it to be a platform for talented artists who deserve a worthy UK stage."

The exhibition's foundations lie in the famous work of Chennai painters K.M. Adimoolam, R.B. Bhaskaran, C.J.A. Doss and A. Kudallur - all of whom are internationally recognised as some of the most important practising artists in this part of India.

• Athiveerapandian: an instinctive eye for flamboyant, expressive colour and semi-figurative shape.
  
  
• Siva: young & talented artist new to the Chennai scene. Highly polished, dramatic work that tell of Siva's paranoia and his own surreal reality in regard to his creative process.
  
  
• Gopinath: well-known painter famous for his striking, mysteriously welcoming abstract paintings inspired by Indian miniatures.
  
  
• Jayakani: obsesses about the end of the world, repetitively painting a nameless city underwater now enjoyed by strange human-fish hybrids. This artistic engagement pre-dates the Asian Tsunami disaster. The tragedy justifying the painter's fixation.
  
  
• Nandhan: Show's only sculptor. His abstract granite creations have an awesome power, all showing a fascination with line, form and texture - he was inspired to sculpt granite when he saw a blind man creating a sculpture.
  
  
• Senathipathy and Selveraj: Merging the traditional with the contemporary, both artists are influenced by traditional Indian painting found in Chennai temples and homes, their content inspired by the female form, Hindu mythology and village life.

ART BY WOMEN

Art by women is still a relative rarity in the South of India. This show includes two female artists - Benitha Perciyal and Asma Menon. Perciyal is rising in notoriety due to her unsettling, psychologically tense decryptions of herself as a woman in India. Menon's work illustrates her own fantasy world in which she is partaker and creator. Ostentatious and colourful, Menon's jewel-like paintings are littered with symbolism.

"Together the 17 artists create an artistic wave that is new to London. They demonstrate a modernity that is deeply rooted in historical-mythological-folkloric imagery, simultaneously, a traditional perspective coming to terms with the encroachments and gifts of the modern world," said Jana Manuelpillai, Director of The Noble Sage.

"The variety and skill is astonishing; proof once again that while the West has been progressing its commercial contemporary art market for three hundred years, India (most recently South India) has been experiencing a modern Renaissance over the last 70 years."

"It's an exciting time to be involved and, though there are galleries in New York and Delhi that specialise in such art exclusively, The Noble Sage is proud to be the first gallery to do the same in London, the greatest capital in the world."

ABOUT JANA MANEULPILLA

Jana Manuelpillai is the man behind The Noble Sage. A British-born, Tamil Sri Lankan, he leads a new breed of home-grown talent forging fresh and exciting links with the subcontinent from which his family originate.

Jana (27yrs) has a wealth of experience behind him and some impressive qualifications to boot. His interest in art at a young age led him to a degree in Art History and English Literature from Birmingham University where he quickly became well-known amongst his peers and professors for his robust presentation style. This was swiftly followed by a First Class Masters degree in Museum Studies at Leicester University, thus cementing his career in art museums and galleries.

His career throughout has been vast, varied and international, spanning from Dulwich Picture Gallery and South London Gallery in his beloved capital, to The Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in the USA, the largest contemporary art space in the world.

Most recently, Jana worked as Head of Education at the well-known Mall Galleries just off Trafalgar Square. Here he added to his formidable knowledge of contemporary art at the same time as utilising his own unique business sense and entrepreneurial spirit in relation to the management, fundraising, sponsorship and marketing of the Mall Galleries' brand new education wing. In December 2004, Jana left the Mall Galleries to burn a trail for himself in the contemporary art world.

The Noble Sage is the product of this high endeavour - an intelligent symphony of Jana's own unique cultural background, his strong belief in the positive emergence of a new world culture, and his unerring love and knowledge of the arts.

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