A different league

To this,the artist merely shrugs philosophically. When I came to Baroda in the 1970s it was with the sole aim of understanding,not how but what it was we were going to paint. We were not taught but freed, he says. Teachers like Gulammohammed Sheikh,Jairam Patel and above all the late Nasreen Mohamedi never encouraged us to compete. So it surprises me when I often read of artists being pitted against each other according to their salability factor, he says.
Still,there have been moments of doubt at staying out of the media glare. There was a time when I used to wonder: Have I missed the bus? Should I have had more group exhibitions? What would it be like to be on someones shopping list as one of the most coveted? he says and then adds,Now,however,I can confidently say that I am satisfied and I have no regrets, he says.

Independent art consultant Prima Kurien points out that if Ramesh has lost out,it is because of the city-centric development of the art market and the limited parameters of so-called art collectors. An artist like V Ramesh will never be snapped up simply because there is nothing glamorous about him or his painting. Even though his canvas featured at an event like the India Art Summit,he is not an easy artist to comprehend. His work requires you to come and visit his canvas with a lot of time in hand as each layer is revealed with each new viewing, she says.

To understand better what she means by revealed,lets choose a canvas by the artista painting of Chairman Mao Zedong. Look over it quickly and you see the Chinese leaders visage rendered against a red backdrop in what can be described as a fairly straightforward photo-realist portrait. Stand in front of it for a while and several other paintings emerge from under this one. Within minutes,one perceives a deer hidden under the first layer of paint right above the ear of Mao. Next one notices another deer at the center of his forehead; a third emerges on the left,above the other ear. In all,there are nine deer in the canvas and the reference is obviously to Buddhas first sermon at the Deer Park,Sarnath. Given the Chinese occupation of Tibet,this subtle reference to Buddha in a portrait of Mao is not a clever trick but a deeply spiritual comment on the intertwining of two diametrically opposite forceslike Gandhi and Godse,or Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty.

Another similarly layered canvas evokes a transcendental portrait of a guru that appears both spiritual and yet erotic. The idea behind Bhakti and devotion when viewed from a non-religious angle is about bridal mysticism. Here one speaks of God as one speaks of the beloved. It is a delicate balance of the sacred and the erotic,present but not overstated in my canvases, says Ramesh. Perhaps that explains why the late artist Bhupen Khakhar spent an entire evening sipping wine in front of Rameshs canvas A thousand and one desires,a painting of a gorgeous black figure covered in a thousand eyes,cursed by the gods for his avarice.

The laidback nature comes from the simple,uncluttered life he has found in the coastal town of Vizag. Everyone knows you and its an easy atmosphere. As a child,I was always the new boy in school because my father was a civil servant and we had to travel a lot. I think this led me to seek out a very settled life, he says. His day begins at 8 am and after teaching at the university,he finds time to paint,but not before a nice heavy meal and a siesta.

Every time he hits a dead end when it comes to his painting,though,he packs away his brushes and goes to the university. I still believe that I get more from my students than they get from me. I never hesitate to share my difficulties as a painter with them. One hopes that the change in my work has come about as natural evolution,for I would hate to change to match the flavour of the season, he says. We could not agree more.