Streets with no name

One wonders, what could have made a painter of arabesques and pretty but abstract forms change his vision? Giving up the comfortable space that the Maharashtra-born artist had carved for himself...

Santosh More8217;s surreal world is disconcerting

One wonders, what could have made a painter of arabesques and pretty but abstract forms change his vision? Giving up the comfortable space that the Maharashtra-born artist had carved for himself, Santosh More is risking a stylistic change8212;one which evokes a surreal evocation of his immediate surroundings.

8220;People usually want you to stick to what they know but the change was important. I had been contemplating the rabid urbanisation of the city in contrast to underdevelopment of the village,8221; says More, who hails from what used to be a small village.

His new canvases, which he will show at Gallery Art and Soul this November, are populated by a surreal town. Each house is constructed as a grid, sometimes viewed through the window of 8216;neighbours8217; sometimes looked at from a bird8217;s-eye view.

The houses also appear plastic, but not in the way a child8217;s Leggo toys are, more like they could stretch and change form at their own will.

Ironically, each row of houses is not very different from the other and yet, we all know that the hopes and dreams of every individual living in the houses would be unique. 8220;I made a conscious decision not to have people in the paintings, since in that would normalise things. The idea is to create a feeling of mystery, ambiguity and surprise. I wanted the paintings to be like a puzzle,8221; says the artist. Along with the paintings More has three animated video projections that show the houses appearing and disappearing, melding one into the other like a jigsaw puzzle.

8220;I had the idea of doing this exhibition on houses when one day I was standing on my terrace in Kandivli. I could see rows of empty MHADA houses looking like a ghost-town,8221; says More.

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Having returned to his home town in Satara district, More also observed that a certain quaintness and rural atmosphere has been maintained. 8220;The decision not to develop these small towns in Rajasthan is because it would ruin tourism. For people living in the city, the whole point of coming to a village is to get a thrill of rural life. Even if that means not allowing these places to have basic amenities,8221; says the artist. However, these concerns surface very subtlety in his work, which is not verbose or preachy. The main intention here is to explore architectural space in a surreal way. The other readings are left open for the viewer.