Journalism of Courage
A high-society woman,flaunting a backless cocktail gown,a stylishly-dressed couple,who believe in Public Display of Affection (PDA),a group of Page 3 women friends,standing with a wine glass,and a man flashing his chic cellphone and smart sunglasses. These are just a few of the paintings etched by city-based IT professional Praveen Nair.
Titled Things,the paintings portray a world soaked in consumerism full of branded products and people driven more by desire than needs. Nairs works are currently on display at Malaka Spice in Koregaon Park.
The 33-year-old techie said his works are neither a statement on society nor does he want to be sermonising. Nair works in an IT firm based in Baner and had recently moved to Pune from Bangalore. He had held his first exhibition in Bangalore in 2003 after completing his five-year diploma in fine arts (painting) from Ken School of Arts there.
When I didnt get the response I expected,I shifted to the IT industry. This is my first exhibition in Pune, Nair said. Earlier in March,he had held an art show in Delhi. A total of nine works that took him six months to complete are on display till August 15. Since I work full-time,I am only able to paint on weekends, the artist said.
According to Nair,things such as branded products can start a conversation,gratify people and often make us feel happy about ourselves in an intangible way. In day-to-day life,things become our desires. Desires are multiple,infinite,abstract,repetitive and very much engraved in our social fabric. We aspire for relationships with people who use certain desirable Things or have more respect ande adulation for them and even wish to be one of them, he said.
Explaining the motif of his art work,Nair said,people have created a vicious circle of things and it is amazing to see their own behaviour in this circle. The artist is aware that the consumer culture cannot thrive by addressing peoples needs; it needs to artificially create demand and sometimes even create dissatisfaction.
Companies are investing billions of dollars to create desire for some new things by convincing people that what they just bought is no longer valuable. This is an amusing interplay of human emotions and their insatiable desire for objects, he explains.
Nevertheless,Nair also has a positive outlook towards things,which make the characters in his paintings desirable. When we go for a party,we take conscious efforts to dress-up nicely,use various accessories. If the things that we are wearing – watch,perfume,glasses,shoes et al – are branded,we dont hesitate in showing off. In fact,these very things connect people and become a medium of conversation. In a way,we humans also end up being a commodity when we use things, said Nair.
