Immigration Check

BHAV DEVI garage, situated at a dusty, bare junction of a suburban Mumbai colony, is awash in activity. Cars are stripped to their frames, h...

BHAV DEVI garage, situated at a dusty, bare junction of a suburban Mumbai colony, is awash in activity. Cars are stripped to their frames, hammers slam away on iron sheets and a flaming blowtorch takes periodic jabs at metal, as the thickset Rajesh welds together a section of a 15-ft sculpture that will soon be mounted at an exhibition.

More such unlikely creations have been born at this automobile garage, and the man responsible for it is now emerging from the metal debris. Dressed in a grey tee and grungy jeans, 34-year-old Riyas Komu looks less like an artist and more like a mechanic. But that8217;s just the way he likes it.

8216;8216;I8217;ve always had a thing for cars, here among the boys I feel like I8217;m really working,8217;8217; says the Kerala-born artist, who otherwise spends his time on canvases at his neighbouring studio.

In the six months he8217;s spent at the garage, Komu8217;s recent body of work has taken a sharp departure from his media image-inspired canvases.

8216;8216;I8217;ve decided to put my leftist ideology into practice and I8217;m turning up the volume,8217;8217; says Komu. A five-foot steel sickle and hammer sculpture in blood red is definitely his loudest protest.

With shows slotted at Delhi8217;s Vadhera Gallery and Mumbai8217;s Tao Art Gallery from March 18, an ongoing one at Delhi8217;s Gallery Espace, and an ambitious project for a 28-ft metal sculpture at Lalit Kala8217;s Ravindra Bhavan, Komu appears to be all creative energy.

But to know the gentler side of this slogan-shouting idealist, take a look at Grass, a project that came about from working with the group of 20-something boys at the garage.

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8216;8216;I started taking their photographs, formal portraits where they smiled at the camera. Then, the work took on a deeper meaning as I began to address their migrant status,8217;8217; says Komu, who himself is a migrant, though from a more privileged class.

8216;8216;I doctored the images in Photoshop till they began to look like soft charcoal drawings that could be easily smudged away. This, I feel, is symbolic of what happens to the identity of these workers from Tamil Nadu, UP, Bihar once they move to the big city,8217;8217; says Komu about his tribute.

Yet their smiling faces speak of resilience and fortitude. Like Purshuttam Naidu, 15, who, like his compatriots, grew up at the garage, and cannot think of a life beyond it.

And though this photo-installation that lionises the proletariat will be put up on a mossy green wall in a gallery in elite south Mumbai, 8216;8216;it can be a sharp reminder,8217;8217; says an impassioned Komu, 8216;8216;to our privileged classes.8217;8217;

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Grass opens at the Guild Art Gallery, Mumbai, on March 23. On till April 15