Hyderabad’s Dhi Artspace celebrates artist Srinivas Bobbili with 150 works

Dhi Artspace on Shyam Karan Road, Ameerpet, Hyderabad, becomes a space for remembrance as friends, family and artists gather to celebrate the life and work of late artist Srinivas Bobbili at the launch of A Biography of the Everyday. The solo show, inaugurated on August 18 to mark Srinivas’ posthumous birthday, features his mixed-media sketches and canvases, reflecting his engagement with ordinary lives, labour, memory and the quiet rhythms of daily existence. “There’s an artist in him whom I wanted to pay tribute to,” says founder Bhargavi Gundala.

Creative vision

The curatorial note describes Srinivas as an artist who could “reveal the extraordinary within the everyday.” Around 150 works — drawings, ink and crayon sketches, and canvases — bring together his practice and invite art lovers to encounter an artist who found meaning in what often goes unnoticed.

Srinivas Bobbili
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Special Arrangement

Assistant curator Amit Kumar Vishwakarma points to Srinivas’ commitment to the fundamentals of art. “He was someone who followed original processes of art. He practised the fundamentals of what we learnt in art college — draw and sketch every day. Whether one paints or not, sketching every day is an important attribute of a good artist.”

Srinivas worked at Dhi as its first coordinator, but his association with Bhargavi dates to the early 2000s, when they studied BFA at Jawaharlal Nehru Architecture and Fine Arts University (JNAFAU), then under Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University. With a school-going child, Bhargavi was among the older students. “He was a quiet person who rarely spoke to others,” she recalls.

Bhargavi Gundala.
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Special Arrangement

After their BFA, their artistic association continued at Bhargavi’s home, where a studio space would eventually become Dhi. Srinivas later took a break from art and moved to Bahrain for an IT job. On returning to Hyderabad, Bhargavi suggested he pursue an MFA. Though he took up other jobs after marriage, “he was always an artist inside who kept coming back to art.”

A cyclist and photographer, Srinivas also worked on a few projects with Bhargavi before his long stint at Dhi and subsequent move to IT. She describes him as a “spontaneous” artist who was unbound by technique or material. “He was neither a printmaker nor sculptor but would learn them in a jiffy. He would try different materials and mediums and was happy with whatever he did.”

By Srinivas Bobbili
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Special Arrangement

Bhargavi hopes auction houses will take an interest in the 2,500 works by Srinivas housed at the gallery. “Last year, I got a call that Srinivas had passed away, but my health was not good. This year, we took it up to do something for his family, comprising his wife and two young children. The show is a thank you and goodbye to him, and also to show art lovers how good he was.”

Srinivas Bobbili: A Biography of the Everyday is on at Dhi Artspace, Shyam Karan Road, Ameerpet, till September 29.