Mixed palette

The 73-year-old painter now has a studio in New Delhi’s Greater Kailash colony and he makes trips to it more than thrice a year—although his current solo Enraptured Gaze is painted entirely in his Paris studio.

The show is travelling. In Mumbai,Art Musings is hosting the opening at

Jehangir Art Gallery; in New York,it opens at the Ikon Gallery. It is dedicated to the perils of our times: The era of violence and love’s struggle to thwart it. “As a painter I cannot be unmoved by my surroundings,I paint people and predicaments. So whether it is the US-led war in Iraq or the terror attacks in Mumbai,violence figures in my canvases,” says

Burman whose works have otherwise been joyful and celebratory. “The only thing that is left to celebrate is the maturity with which the people have responded to the attacks,” he says recalling the bloody riots after the 1993 blasts.

A simultaneous narrative of love and violence unfolds on each canvas. A couple entwined in the upper register appear as the metaphor for love,while in the lower register of the painting men with guns look out menacingly. In another painting,a bald man strikes a Bond-like pose as Shiva seated on Nandi appears to be contemplating the bottom half. In yet another work,a man tries to awaken his sleeping lover,as a man with a gun rushes towards the couple.

Interestingly,there is never any direct confrontation between these figures,the violent ones or the lovers. Instead,they all appear to be in a trance,contemplating their own thoughts. “I am a contemplative artist. When I work I go into a kind of a reverie. I think that translates onto my figures as well,” says Burman. “Also,despite bringing out the truth about us human beings,I also imbue my paintings with a sense of hope that love will conquer the violence,” says the artist whose wife and fellow painter Maite Delteil has come down to support her spouse on the opening night.

Burman’s family is full of painters and they all have a role to play on his canvases. Sometimes it’s his daughter Maya and her son Ganapati set against the tale of Noah’s Ark. Other times it’s Deltei posing as an Odalisque slumbering on while the world swirls chaotically. Yet another time the artist is featured either as a painter or a hybrid animal. “My world of fantasy,populated by deities and mythological creatures,and my immediate surroundings are woven together on my canvases,” says the artist.