Skipping with the clouds

Hirlekar’s work quite surprises you. There is bold imagination and scale here,and the room pulsates with the positive energy of colours that may have been forgotten in these times of deluge. “See,life is a combination of the positive and negative. I have worked on and trained my mind to look at everything positive. And I am happily enjoying life now,” Hirlekar smiles,while adjusting his red-tinted glasses that curiously sport two small Mickey Mouse stickers on one stem.

The Borivali-based artist held his first ever exhibition in 1991 in Mumbai after quitting his ad agency job. Since then he has developed an inclination towards working on big object mediums (“canvas,as a shape,is stale”) and thinking beyond the obvious. He was bothered by the water mafia who were involved in illegal business of the water,so he built an installation of small plastic water cans wearing black sun-glasses. In Virar,he saw how water has become a business,so he built a taps installation with yellow tubs under them filling with blue water. The bigger frames have the handles and tails of umbrellas,and even taps jutting out of them. The fibre masks are resplendent pieces,one of them emblazoned with a woman’s face wearing a huge nath . On the approach to the exhibition room are sun-mica pieces with gravel stuck on them to show potholes. “Rain water,the waiting and welcoming of rains,its ironic sale by businesses,I am inspired by all of this. I used to paint on real umbrellas earlier,but then I was asked who would buy them. I then shifted to bigger fibre pieces,so that they can be hung up on walls.”

Hirlekar spent two years in Pune in the early 80s,so that he could work away from home. “Or else,at home I would have been stuck with other commitments like,birthday ko jaao,samosa-chips khaao,” he chuckles. He got into Abhinav Kala Mahavidyalay,but dropped out after a year to get his own thing going. At one point he was taking bulk art orders,with some 50 people working for him,but he put a stop to that too “because I was yelling around like a baniya . That’s not what I wanted to do.” So today he just channelises what inspires him,meditates and believes that the energy of an art work is its biggest draw. “I like meeting people who come just for the sake of art. It is not about the money or the technique or logic. It is the energy you infuse into your work.”