A Loving Detachment

Veteran city-based artist Milind Mulick talks about painting subjects that are immediate to common man and capturing the inherent visual sensation in things.

Milind Mulicks muse is this city. The artist can step out of his home for a walk and the world outside appears as a juxtaposition of subjects. Muliks canvases portray nondescript nooks and crannies,which assume a strange dazzle when rendered by him in paint,along with others featuring iconic city establishments such as Good Luck Cafe on FC Road and Shaniwarwada. In his exhibition titled Mixed Feelia at Darpan Art Gallery,Patrakar Nagar Lane,Mulik brings a slice of the city along with a portion of the Konkan belt for the art hungry.

The exhibition has been titled Mixed Feelia for a reason. I move around Pune and experience different things, says Mulick,adding,While wandering around the city there are many things one encounters. For example,if one stands at a signal,one sees an array of billboards and a sea of people crossing the street. Therefore,some of my paintings are of crossroads,which seek to express the mixed emotions induced by the spectacle. At one end of the spectrum theres visual ecstasy,while on the other end theres visual pollution: too many people and the rush. As an individual I may not like whats happening; the noise,air and visual pollution. But as an artist I must be able to detach myself from the situation and fish out what interests me in order to paint it.

Mulicks concept of detachment is the fulcrum which makes his art revolve. See,my philosophy in life is that if you are attached to things,they bother you. So,I seek to establish a loving detachment,which doesnt translate into me disliking the subject,but liking them from a certain sentimental distance so as to not allow the subject to bother me psychologically, elucidates Mulick. He goes on to illustrate his point. If I encounter a municipality trash bin overflowing with garbage,I could choose to sneer and swear at the authorities for doing a shoddy job and at citizens for clumsily chucking their trash around the bin; while not doing anything about it myself. On the other hand,if I isolate myself from all the negativity,I might be able to do something positive about it; which is to find a pattern in it that is beautiful and can be painted. And I paint and paint because I can paint, he says.

Mulick says people often ask him what hes trying to say in his paintings. The truth is,I am not trying to say anything. I am trying to connect the dots and find a pattern and hopefully capture the implicit visual sensation in something. That sensation is beautiful and I am trying to find and paint that sensation, says Mulik.

So is the creative process aimed at wrenching sentimentality out of his works? Yes,only the negative sentimentality,while retaining all the positivity. To be able to preserve this positivity is my reward as an artist, says Mulick.

Labeling himself as an artist,Mulick calls himself a painter of community spaces. Apart from a painting of Shanivarwada (exhibited at Darpan),which is an exception among my other works,I dont paint structures that are larger than life, confesses Mulick. He explains that hed rather deal with a subject that is more immediate to the multitudes. For example,I do not see any beauty in the Taj Mahal. To me it is a symbol of disparity between how the kings lived and how their subjects lived. Even appearance-wise I dont find anything spectacular about it,apart from the fact that it is very expensive; which does not impress me a lot, he says.

Mulick also confesses that hes quite anti-capitalist. He strolls past a painting hes made of a goat chewing on garbage. Look at him hes probably not even aware that hes surrounded by garbage. He probably sees it positively. Id rather paint this spectacle than the Taj Mahal, concludes Mulick.

Story continues below this ad

Mixed Feelia will be on display at Darpan Art Gallery till December 3

Click here to join Express Pune WhatsApp channel and get a curated list of our stories

Tags:
taj mahal