Black Magic

IT8217;S time for Vadodara-based Jeram Patel to turn the clock back. Thirty years after he first experimented with blowtorches on woodworks...

IT8217;S time for Vadodara-based Jeram Patel to turn the clock back. Thirty years after he first experimented with blowtorches on woodworks, the 73-year-old artist has revived the form for an exhibition titled 8216;Invoking the Unseen8217; at Delhi8217;s Gallery Espace. Sharing prime space with the wood sculptures are black and white drawings.

8216;8216;I worked extensively with the blowtorch in the 1960s, but then had to give it up because of health problems,8217;8217; says Patel, a graduate of Sir JJ School of Art, Mumbai. The art requires the artist to burn the wood with a blowtorch8212;the same instrument used by welders on iron8212;and then engrave on it.

In the interregnum, Patel turned to black and white drawings after dabbling briefly in colour. 8216;8216;I realised that yellow is definitely not for me. Red is still okay, but black is the best,8217;8217; he chuckles.

Black8212;the charred parts8212;also does most of the talking in Patel8217;s blowtorched woodworks. 8216;8216;What is a painting? An image. This is also an image,8217;8217; he says of the medium he pioneered in the 1960s. 8216;8216;There is a search for the unknown which, I think, has always found expression in my works.8217;8217;

So, to the unwary viewer, his images often look like they don8217;t belong to this world. 8216;8216;I don8217;t know if they are spiritual. They are just visuals which may have never crossed your mind,8217;8217; says the artist who is also a fellow of the Royal Society of London.

Interestingly, though Patel himself stayed away from blowtorches for three decades, the art form was taken up by others, most famously, Satish Gujral.

Patel8217;s motivation to express himself again through blowtorched woodwork came from his friends. 8216;8216;They asked me why I didn8217;t take it up again, and I agreed,8217;8217; he says.

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The art involves burning wood with a blowtorch and then engraving on it

Patel8217;s friends are an important part of his life, as they have always been. Part of the J Swaminathan-founded Group 1890, Patel, along with Himmat Patel, Ghulammohammed Shaikh and a few others, spearheaded a new movement in Indian art, looking for an indigenous language to take on the institutionalised western idiom.

8216;8216;We were a few like-minded people who got together to form this group, we had a strong liking for each other. There was a lot of conventional art happening all around us, and we wanted to do something different. We had our own manifesto, and even organised an art show. But the group dispersed within one-and-half years,8217;8217; says Patel.

But the bonds were more difficult to break. Today, the septuagenarian8217;s life in Vadodara revolves around friends and art; his wife and son are based in the US. Says the artist, 8216;8216;I spend my days reading, meeting friends, painting and drawing. I keep painting not always to sell, but for myself and to show my friends.8217;8217;

Occasionally, he makes exceptions to the rule, much to the delight of art aficionados.