The Al Ikhlas Gallery, The Movement of the Triangle was inaugurated by Mr Rajesh Meena, SP Ajmer during the International Sufi Festival India 2011 which was held in Ajmer on the 21-27th Oct 2011.
The gallery held the 7 day Art & Photography exhibition displaying Digital Paintings by Michael Templin, Germany, Sacred Art by Gulshaa Begum, Mughal Paintings by Vijay Singh Chauhan, Mandana with Calligraphy by Sanjay Sethi and Mystical Photography by Deepak Sharma. The other artist who participated was Meenakshi Mangal, Chandni Jain and Alka Sharma by a display of Mandana and Rajasthani Folk Art.
Many dignitaries attended the 7 day exhibition. The display of Islamic Calligraphy and Sufi Art was also a part of the most talked about exhibition in Ajmer. The main highlight of the gallery is its sequence of the mystical sacred art which is one of the rare arts ever in the history of the world.
The Ikhlas collection, therefore, is an important historical as well as sequential time-line of the entire movement of sacred art in the country. As one of the largest such repositories of Sacred art anywhere in the world, it is one of the most significant links for anyone with an interest in Sacred art – whether art-lovers, collectors, academicians, scholars, researchers.
Sacred Art is a reflection of the deep hidden Divine Design of universe. It is by nature a reflection of light, order, beauty, mystery, meaning, cohesiveness, oneness, and natural, joyful wonder. To the extent that we have the inner Eye of wisdom to see, the art becomes a lens through which we know ever more clearly, aspects of divinity, within and without. – says Gulshaa Begum
At its very beginning, the Ikhlas motto was to establish a museum of the sacred art .Entire collections of the sacred art of the mystic is compiled, restored, archived and made available for global spectators. As a result, the extensive list is recognized for its quality of artworks.
Extensive exhibition – part of its ongoing efforts on shedding new light on, of course, the well-established artists and their genres, but also on the lesser-known but equally talented painters and sculptors – is a measure of the seriousness of Ihklas’s effort of concentrating not just on the names of Indian artists familiar to all art-lovers, but also those artists who deserve their space on the same platform providing the perfect stage to revive the ancient culture of Sufi art in the country. This meant re-discovering the great artists of the century, many with proven track records who had been allowed to descend into anonymity.
Al Ikhlas Art Gallery will be committed in bringing together the most determining works of artists from all over the world, all of whom are represented at Al Ikhlas, to their associates, the important and diverse schools and groups spread throughout India, to artists of more recent vintage with their own, established track records.
Al Ikhlas Art Gallery, unlike most others, owns more than 500 objects in its entire, exhaustive collection. It is, simply, the most important institution for 20th century sacred art not just in India but around the world.