It’s a tribute to spirit of the city — concrete, open bricks: Artist Rajinder Tikku

“I won’t call it an inspiration, but a stimulus, for I have seen and studied the city for years,’’ reflects Jammu-based Tiku, whose works are reminiscent of a nostalgic past. Tiku talks about Piet Mondrian and Kandinsky, whom he describes as prophets of modern art and masters of abstraction.

“Mondrian gave a different meaning to geometry and how it becomes spiritual, and all the progress of his work is represented through interaction between horizontal and vertical, beyond the body. He moved from traditional to pure abstract, where squares, rectangles in various colours got applied in various areas of design and architecture. Corbusier was a disciple of Mondrian and Chandigarh is a result of this application, in terms of material and living spaces,’’ says Tikku.

Describing the experience as overwhelming, the sculptor said, “We need to respond to what is around us, and so he has strived to simplify the grid, interrupting the stone block with smaller things, also scribbling and writing to create an illusion.”

“I have tried to incorporate this in visual terms and when we recite that mantra in a space, it generates into a city and makes it functional. I believe sculpture is materialisation of thought, and my work here has been conceived as part of the landscape. There’s no message. It’s a tribute to the spirit of the city. It has deep relation to the material of the city — concrete, open bricks. So I have retained its texture, taking it from raw to polished, expressing the material quality and good quality of the city,’’ explained Tikku.

The artist hopes that the sculptures created as part of the workshop will find a prominent place in Chandigarh, so that the public can see and feel them.

Bhopal-based Robin David has for many years been working with architectural sculptures, including a series that explores the depths of baories (stepwells) and also caves and idols. Here in Chandigarh, new ideas emerged and Robin, whose works aim to explore the sanctums of stone, both physically and conceptually, has created ‘Window to the Sky’, a tribute to Corbusier’s way of creating windows.

David has created a split in work, between the two sides of the sculpture, from which you can seek the sky, “and that part of the sky is yours.”

Sculptor and artist Vipul Kumar has created a ‘Breathing Wall’, inspired from the hedge that separates the College of Arts from the Museum.

“There is no concrete wall here, so the hedge doesn’t divide, but connects, and my design borrows from spaces that bring people together, like I observed here’’ smiles Kumar, who attempts to feel the human soul in his work.
In another work which uses architecture as its central point, D Rajshekharan from Chennai, creates a stunning sculpture, where he divided the stone into many parts, and then creating a form that resembles a tall building, in which are small dwelling units, the underlying theme being the nest.

“Creating sculptures is a playful and dynamic act of engaging with the medium, and it was wonderful to interact with the audience and let them be part of this process,” observes Rajshekharan.

Similarly, Mrigendra Partap Singh for some time now has been working with the concept of architecture in his work, and here he has created ‘Once Upon a Time There Was a Home’, depicting how old buildings which have been abandoned for years, are not really empty, for even if people don’t live there, nature keeps doing something in these spaces, and transforms it.