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Journalism of Courage
Q. Humour seems crucial to your work. How important is it in getting your idea across?
Ans.Layers of humour such as parody, satire, travesty etc offer rich clarity to certain realities and challenges. If we take the painting Emission Test as an example, one can observe that surface imagery suggests a scene of RT PCR test, but if one pays attention to the painting, it reveals the idea of human ‘identities’ and their emissions. One can see that people and elements from all walks of life are sitting on a plastic chair and samples are being taken. The anatomical/biological diagram, painted at the bottom left, suggests the technical aspect of how humans emit ‘sound/voice’ to the idea of emission test. It touches upon the idea of ‘voices’ and aspects of ‘truth’. Such interwoven metaphors make ‘art’ a great bridge to understand ‘time and space’ of life.
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Q.While on one hand you offer the microscopic view in your work, you often juxtapose it with the cosmos. If you could tell us more about this?
Ans.While we live our everyday life, we tend to float in the ‘worldly’ offerings. Events and happenings of everyday eclipse our understanding of our presence in the large expanse of cosmos. This situation inspires me to play between two extremes of sensory understanding — the ‘micro and (the) macro’. For example, in Reclaiming the Inner Space, a viewer enters the work through a panorama. Then, there are hundreds of smaller narratives and events they would experience when they come close to the work. This reverses in the painting titled Life Asks, where only one simple detailed image (hands holding a bowl) is presented to a viewer. Here the cosmos in itself becomes a container, so how and what would we imagine inside this bowl? Or is there such a thing called inside and outside?
Q.If you could discuss the process of building a narrative through the hundreds of figures that form part of the flat field in several of your works, including Arrived From Elsewhere and Emission Test in the ongoing exhibition.
Ans.Once I broadly know the structure and subjectivity of a painting, I let my hand and memory work in balance to create/draw a series of events and happenings. If the structures become too liner/convincing/meaningful, I break this flow with certain unrelated intuitional painterly interventions. Many times, I too get surprised by what pops up in this ‘auto flow’ of images from mind to a canvas surface! But I also add a few conscious events and narratives. So, it becomes a juxtaposed conscious and unconscious activity on the same surface. In the panoramic gaze, one can experience a collection of sub-narratives forming into a meta narrative. Above all, a painting also leads the artist in several directions, I especially like this process.
Q.You draw from different artistic practices — from Indian painting to poster art, and artists such as (18th-century Japanese painter) Ito Jakuchu and (19th-century Italian painter) Giorgio Morandi. Could you tell us about your various influences?
Ans.Popular arts adapt to context and time very quickly. They enjoy the flatness of the presented image; also take the liberty to flatten (visually as well as philosophically) all the given images. A painting from Jakuchu is about the intensity of painting and richness of surface and image. Morandi takes ‘figurative painting’ to a beautiful silence, they almost become abstract paintings. His quality of paint is like a retinal poem! So each of these artists and their works inspire me in different ways and also re-establish the idea of painting and its timelessness. This gives me confidence and also encourages me to paint and paint again.
Q.You have compared your practice to writing…
Ans.This is hard to explain. This is a process which happens in front of the painting. There is a lot of ‘automatic painting’ which happens in the process of painting. Since I have been painting for such a long time, there are few things which get drawn with ease. For example, if one develops certain control over language, she/he need not have to think much about its construction (spelling, grammar, etc). Then comes this automatic flow of words from mind to paper. This fluency is good and also a trap for an artist. Especially once a hand achieves certain skill to create figures or a form in a certain way, the artistic failure may set in. So, it is best to be aware of this trap and keep experimenting while taking artistic risks as a prime creative project.
Q.You are interested in science and drawing parallels between science and art. If you could elaborate on this.
Ans.Well, I failed my Class XII science exam. Now, when I look back, I am certain I was never interested in ‘applied science’, I rather had an inclination towards ‘pure science’. While studying in arts college (MS University, Baroda), I was also interested to know the frontiers of science. Those were the days without the internet. So local libraries were the waterholes where I could pick up books and read about other fields of studies. In the ’90s, for a few years, a friend from Australia sent me copies of New Scientists magazines. Initially, I was interested in the human body, then in cell and atomic structures. Now, I enjoy following certain institutes like CERN, that are frequently unfolding structures of ‘matter’.
Q.As an artist, how important is it for you to engage in community-based projects? You work a lot with children. For Gathering Delights you worked with organic farmers.
Ans.Since the beginning, I enjoyed making art in the studio (personal space) and in public spaces. This not only keeps me engaged with society directly but also gives me the opportunity to negotiate and infuse ‘art’ spaces into the ever-changing cultural dynamics of a society. For example, when I was conceptualising my show at CHAT in Hong Kong (a museum set inside an old textile mill), I felt it is not only important to pay attention to the industrial nature of our clothing but also to the farmers who grow raw materials which get woven in large machines. For this, I invited two of my organic farmer friends to accompany me to Hong Kong and requested them to discover the possibilities for a dialogue with the local farming community as well as art institutions. Such experiments could be argued under the aspect of ‘action as art’. Similarly, for many years, I have designed several community projects to focus on the creative possibilities for young minds.
The exhibition is on till May 2.
