A Smear of Scarlet on the Canvas

Several Indian artists are responding to global terrorism through their works

All artists react to violence, only a few live to express this experience through their craft. Kashmir-born Veer Munshi, whose show Encounter concluded in Delhi8217;s Visual Arts Gallery this week, and his family, was forced to flee their home in the Hindu-dominated Barbarshah area of Srinagar in 1990, during the peak of militancy.

Munshi, who studied painting at Baroda8217;s MS University, decided to reject landscapes on a belligerent impulse. Innards of war engines and shrapnel soon became anchors of his past in canvases.

8220;It8217;s as if I am still in my jeans, my shoes tied up and about to break into a run. That unsettled feeling persists,8221; says the artist, now 51, and a Delhi resident.

But this frontal stance of his earlier works has steadily distilled into a more poetic imagery after coming into contact with people in conflict zones from other parts of the world. In 1996, Munshi attended a Human Rights workshop in Geneva, which helped him to sympathise than become a reactionary. 8220;I began to understand the mind of the minority,8221; he says.

Incorporating found objects, wooden sculptures of crows and even photographs of beardless Iraqi boys from newspapers, Munshi began to evolve a new visual vocabulary. One of his exhibited works, Winds of Change, contrasts the luxuriant lotus-filled Dal Lake with a forest of helmets in war fatigue fabric. For his sculptural piece, Missiles of Faith, he used quivering iron grills, twisted tridents and a tossed-down boat to mirror the confusion of faith in a hostile world .

There are, however, several other artists who are responding to the bigoted environment through art. Artist Anita Dube has done some work on the Iraq war. Works of Masood Hussain, a Srinagar-based artist, is more personal, but his true stories have a universal resonance.

In the age of global terrorism, as boundaries get blurred, suspicion and hatred permeates every walk of life, Hussain8217;s works like In Memory of Sadiq could have taken place anywhere. The painting was a monument to his friend and brother of artist G R Santosh, killed in a crossfire in 1994. Exhibited in Art Heritage Gallery last year, it was made in paper pulp, fabric and papier mache cups . The austere ingredients made for a stunning display of gory mutilation in a godless world.

Story continues below this ad

Similarly, Hussain8217;s work, Stampede, is a reflection of the civic unrest following the death of religious leader Maulvi Farooq in the 90s. 8220;After the riots, there was a sea of shoes on the street,8221; says Hussain, who used quotes from poet Agha Shahid Ali8217;s book on the Kashmir problem, The Country without a Post Office .

8220;It is despairing to see ordinary people victimised in the name of God,8221; says Delhi-based artist G R Iranna. During a recent sculpture exhibition titled The Human Figure in New Delhi8217;s Lalit Kala Akademi, Iranna8217;s work was striking and blunt in its manifestation of a crippled world. Make Sure You Are Breathing is a fibreglass sculpture of a naked man, head covered in a masked gunny bag and with the words Khuda Gawa or God8217;s Promise inscribed on it 8212; an artistic demonstration of human suffocation and

muffled speech.

The other work at the exhibition organised by Gallery Threshold8212;Jehangir Jani8217;s installation called Prayer 8211; dealt with the after-affects of a bloody carnage, reminding one of the minor survivors of Patia Naroda during the Gujarat riots or the recent Qana bombings. Jani effectively used a hospital tray, a baby8217;s cast back as well as materials like salt and coal to signify the duality of life and death. 8220;My work8221;, says Jani, 8220;deals with both violence and healing. But my biggest regret isnbsp;that innocent people are looked upon with suspicion for a crime they never committed,8221; he says. It is reassuring

to see that the sensitive artists are making their voices heard.