A Second Life

Professionals from various fields are making their mark in the art world.

Bohemian French painter Paul Gauguin began his life as a doctor and French Post-Impressionist artist Henri Rousseau was a tax collector. In India,Bhupen Khakhar,one of the countrys first openly gay artists,began his professional life as an accountant,while Mumbai-based contemporary artist Sudhir Patwardhan,whose compelling solo show was recently put up at Lalit Kala Akademi,Delhi,had a full-time career as a radiologist till a year ago. Pursuing their passion alongside their professional commitments,several prominent artists have,over the years,created an oeuvre which is different from the artwork of full-time artists.

Gauguin,Rousseau,Khakhar or Patwardhan never attended an art academy,and created their own styles through trial and error even as they strove to crack the glass ceiling of intellectual art. Some of them let their varied professions feed their art Patwardhans medical practice gave him an added empathy for the working class,some of whom were his patients,while Khakhars mundane life as an accountant marked his humorous portraits of various working class men involved in unlikely risque encounters.

Not everybody is convinced of the importance of this group that exists alongside full-time artists. A painter must have a distinctive visual language. A person can excel in only one field,either their profession or their art. Once they retire,however,he or she can concentrate more on art, says Renu Modi of Gallery Espace.

Last month,the director of the National Gallery of Modern Art,Rajeev Lochan,inaugurated an exhibition of paintings by Indian diplomat Abhay Kumar in the Capital. The exhibition was titled We Have Come Far,and addressed issues relating to the environment and spirituality. He has also displayed his works in Paris and St Petersburg

A few weeks earlier,one saw civil services officer Sudha Pillai showing her paintings on the lawns of a friends big bungalow in Delhi. Being a diplomat feeds into my artwork because I travel a lot and that makes me aware of global issues that get channeled into my works, says Kumar,whose paintings lean towards abstraction while trying to capture the cosmic beauty of the earth through geometric forms.

In April,Gallery Art Motif in Delhi hosted an exhibition of tapestries and wall hangings by Sri Lankan architect Tilak Samarawickrema. The exhibition displayed his flair for interpreting traditional Sinhalese weaving work with the contemporary twist of the Bauhaus design flair. My work as an architect informs much of my design sensibility as an artist. Im more inclined towards geometry and symmetry, says Samarawickrema.

While visual arts like painting and sculpture require training and skill,new media projects are making it possible for many younger artists like Ahmedabad-based classical and contemporary dancer Revanta Sarabhai to indulge in experimental video art. His first project is a multimedia performance piece on long-distance relationships. I want to use the webcam as my tool to convey the challenges that couples face when separated by time and distance, says he.

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