March 7-25, 2008

Artist Statement

“A picture speaks a thousand words”
Image-making dates back to prehistoric times. If it can stand separate from the self, it becomes universal. What does a painting mean, why does one want to speak in the language of colours and images? New Art accommodates both the creative and the imitative. It looks for pictorial values in art first, which overlooks the physical or linguistic values. I see my works beyond what I choose to paint. Getting ‘under’ is a constant activity and is essentially how my surface arises. Space is a busy area, deep and heavy and sometimes it is like peeping through a dusty glass window pane that fuzzes the edges of everything behind it.
The content of these paintings draws much from literature/poetry and history. Less glorious than it is intense, these pictures are not meant to be seen as illustrations (to me) but are revoked thoughts, ponderous ideas and fluid music.

Romantic relationships manifest in myriad ways…, sometimes actualized and more often than not left unfulfilled…, they inspire many an artist to creative contemplation and use of this idiom in their work.

How can you describe tragedy?

The dictionary calls it “a play about unhappy events, and with a sad ending”.
A. C. Bradley, a scholar on Shakespearean tragedy say’s, “it’s essentially a tale of suffering and calamity, conducting to death”. The 12th century story of Heloise and Abelard comes close to that. The time-endless, separation and torture, a loneliness and longing; words of which are left in innumerous letters that they wrote to each other till the end of their lives.

Heloise and Abelard, a story like this often repeats itself, it becomes a subject enacted, read, retold and enjoyed for the melancholy and yet remains celebration of sorts.
Sometimes I look at a picture closely to search for that which lies beneath the flakes of colour. Somewhat in this manner, I draw the images of words that were maybe spoken or written between them. Some clues of secrets - imagined or otherwise.

Painting comes to me around what I choose to paint. It omits, deletes, recreates, dramatizes, it all works to convince me, bypassing the formalistic view. When I paint on a smaller scale, with many colours cluttered over the tabletop, one moves easily from one area to another. For a line that I draw at one end, it is a colour on the other side to balance it. An image against an image, a film of pigment between them, correction, repetitions. A painting allows me to be what I want to be….

Imagine a decorated dish laid out on the table. Presenting - a festive flavour; sweet fruits dipped in bitter chocolate. And one is solely authorized to dwell in it’s delight.
Acquisitions are of many kinds. Through chattering chirping sounds, this frieze-like pattern veils a cold desire. A white fog hides, or expresses. Like finger drawings on a “steamed” window, somewhere we see what is there, and some things remain an illusion.
Here are the majestic and the gracious.

There is a soldier with an aim or a bird which obeys. While they still remain in daze, the pictures speak differently. Riding on the promise of eternal happiness, what do these hues mean? We talk different tongues, eat different tastes, but conditioning makes us believers and day dreams convince. The lie is the new truth, so we know. And anything else one may never.

Posing like a starlet may not come easy. The paraphernalia makes it easier.

If you drop a thick blotch of acrylic paint and allow it to dry, it leaves behind a dense colour with a reflective shine. When there is a formation of pattern in this manner, what lies behind this surface is not open for us to look at. But what we actually see is like a two- dimensional mosaic. Glossy uneven shapes put together to bring meaning, or to function as concealers.

If we look at history in relevance to our present time, old tales will continue to get new meanings. They will remain fresh and age will not matter. These droppings on the effirgies spell neglect; traced lines from history have no use. White holes on the canvas show the blank space. Since; much has been layered upon. Translucent films of different colours reveal all those thoughts which have build us together.

“The queen must produce some substance that attracts the workers and that can be obtained from her only by direct contact. This substance evidently stimulates the normal working behaviour in the hive. This chemical messenger has been called ‘queen substance’, experiments have shown that the bees obtain it directly from the body of the queen” - Man and Insects.

In order to experience the life of a bird in cage, one has to shrink to it’s size first, In the cage, the first thing one must get used to is the confinement. The limitations that have been chosen, you live with unconsciously. The borders imposed, you will one day erase or convince yourself of this surreal existence.

Art historical readings have often suggested that objects and nature in art reflect the spirit of the age, but contemporary art language accommodates all; the mimetic skill and the formless space.

Drawn kitsch symbolism, on walls and painted local adverts; Reflective stickers and shiny tattoos for books and skin. These all are placed arbitrarily on my small canvas paintings, almost like labeling many names to one. Objects of home and work, the studies of nature and animals are from descriptions you will find in children’s social study books where the pictures are printed in exaggerated colours and shown in disproportion with each other. A closer look at little things or big things seen in small, it seems to be a comical dialogue which reduces people and situations to proper proportions through humour.

There are times when stories and myths take form in flesh and feel like “deja vu’. But it actually should be the other way round; after all, all tales take clue from reality - and history is for us to believe in. When painting, the subject/the scene, stays as chosen, it’s the feeling that changes through lucid colours and contrasts of surface. Everything shows as though through layers of sheer shaded cloth. Those transparent thoughts…..which are in our existence, like spots of time.

Artist Works