The Nurturing Forest - Nostalgia for Trees (Exhibition Review) Chandan Bez Baruah, curated by Waswo x Waswo, Gallery Latitude 28

Somewhere In Northeast India, there is a valley. A deep, lopsided and gently undulating ‘V’ covered with dense foliage. Multiple, parallel lines mark the ether above and behind it, as if to denote the parameters of a rising horizon. In this Woodcut print (image 2, 15 x 20 inches, 2020), the artist has chiseled out the surface of the woodblock with minimal lines. Viewed from a distance, the resultant black and white presentation looks like a perfect photographic replica. 

Elsewhere in the same geographic locale, brambles, stems and an occasional leaf-structure form the foreground of another woodcut print (pt ii, 20 x 24 inches, 2020). Within the carved lines of the bramble and leaves – evoking the same minimal mark-making as in the earlier image, a dark space emerges. Is it a cave, a child’s hiding place or sanctuary in the forest, or is it something dark and foreboding – a  forbidden space? A dense formation of insistent, intensely placed horizontal lines define the sky above the rambling shrubbery.  These lines become a recurring pattern in almost all the works on display. 

It was the first art show I was seeing in almost a year. The distress of lockdown and the Covid-19 pandemic aside, being a caregiver is exhausting and emotionally draining. I had been in Delhi for more than three months and hadn’t been able to get out. As my mother got better, I tuned into some on-line viewing but despite the amazing ‘viewing room’ experience, I was itching to see a live exhibition. Not just zoom into the artworks with a digital cursor but get up close - using my body and mind to look, as also imbibe the subtle nuances that one receives from the physicality of art, which a digital experience doesn’t and cannot convey.  And, Chandan Bez Baruah’s exhibition of woodcut prints, curated by Waswo x Waswo, at Latitude 28 ( January 22nd to March 1st, 2021, but may be extended), was just the thing for me. 

Walking into the first floor of the Lado Sarai gallery run by Bhavna Kakkar, I held my breath in awe. Were these really woodblock prints, couldn’t be! The craftsmanship was so magnificent, that I began to wonder if somehow the artist had used laser technology to cut the wodges. But this was more of an after-thought. Surrounded by Bez Baruah’s graphically portrayed black and white photorealist landscapes, one was transported into another world. Not only was the execution mind-blowing, the finely chiselled markings denoting the thriving countryside of the North Eastern region of India was another kind of space. I was imaginatively transported, away from the cacophony of the city and the life-threatening episodes that my mother’s illness had put me and my sisters through. Chandan’s images of dense foliage, were contrarily life-affirming and therefore refreshing. And yet, the blackness of ink instead of lush green was intimidating. I was rejuvenated but only momentarily, as the stark evocation didn’t sustain this restorative effect. 

In addition, the title of the show ‘If A Tree Falls (Somewhere in Northeast India)’ was most curious, compelling me  go beyond the profusion of mountainous growth to consider what the artist sought to imply. Was he alluding to the danger of the earth’s ecology? Threatened by heedless urban projects spreading like an uncontainable tumour, farther and farther into virgin forest. But, it didn’t seem quite so straightforward. Though I could see an abundance of trees or a likeness thereof, the black and white images were contrarily bleak.  Where large areas of black within each frame, created a feeling of gloom. This could suggest the fragility of the jungle -  of flora and fauna endangered by deforestation. But, the artist’s medium of woodcut was a contradiction. I therefore assumed it wasn’t just a lament of the forest, of when yet another tree would fall, and another and yet another. Something deeper was at play, or was it?

As my viewing wasn’t a solitary one, I left the reflections for another time and enjoyed the company of old friends, while admiring the dexterity of Bez Baruah’s block prints.

Historically, block printing on textiles preceded the printing of books using wood blocks and also the famed Japanese Ukiyo-e woodcut prints. Being a textile designer, I’ve been fascinated by this technique since my student days when one learned to print fabric using blocks carved from wood. Engraving a block of wood was not only too specialised a task for novice students but expert ‘block-cutters’, who create the ‘stamps’ from designs drawn on paper, have always been the backbone of  block-printing communities. Wandering through villages that specialise in these textiles, one can hear the inimitable sounds of lumber wodges being chiselled and hammered, emanating from small kiosks and shops of carvers, lining village lanes close to printing units, to provide  ‘chippas’  with blocks ready to print. At the Anoki Museum of Block Printing, just outside Jaipur, I once sat for hours watching fifty year old craftsman Mujeeb Ulla Khan, whose been craving blocks since the age of ten, listening to his stories – of how he learned by watching others, to master the indigenous tools of kalam (chisel), thapi (hammer) and kamani (bow)which he used to intricately carve the surface of the ‘stamp’.

However, artists such as Chandan Bez Baruah, are both carver and printer, making the contemporary art of woodcut prints all the more engaging. One is not just viewing his artistic commentary but also witness to enormous hand-crafting skills, most commendable in an era of technologies that challenge the painstaking work done by hand. With so many printmaking techniques available, it is noteworthy that Bez Baruah chooses this most ancient craft. And that he has perfected his deftness, is even more creditable. 

While many artists across the centuries have worked with woodcut, most didn’t carve the blocks themselves. One of the most iconic, world renowned prints, is ‘The Great Wave’ by Hokusai. This legendary Japanese printmaker and painter, of the Edo period, is said to have been capable of carving his own blocks but probably didn’t, being creative with illustrations and paintings instead. Albrecht Durer, an earlier artist of the fifteenth century German Renaissance, transformed the crude and thick lines of earlier printing with intricacy of detail and subtle gradations. Achieving this through precise carving, he elevated the artform to a level, historically unsurpassed. A notation in his theoretical writings suggests that he carved some blocks himself, deviating from the general practice of assigning this work to a professional woodcutter, but even so it was just an occasional thing. 

Contemplating why Bez Baruah defies convention in this regard I made a study of his prints,  textual material on his art practice and life in the hillsides of the North east region. He was born in the city of Nagoan, Assam, through which flows the Kolong River - a tributary of the mighty Brahmaputra. His mother’s early demise compelled the family to relocate to Guwahati and it  was here that he developed a life-long connection with the woods. Residing in Nagaon, his proximity to indigenous Assamese communities such as the Karbi and Tiwa (Lalung) and their native traditions of living in harmony with the natural habitat, as also the exposure to their spiritual and cultural traditions may have influenced his early association  with nature, but the artist says : “When we shifted to Guwahati city, I became lonely…….Guwahati city is surrounded with hills, and my home also was near the lower end of the hills. I used to go to the green jungle (for) more than entertainment or other activities. In the midst of the jungles, I talked with them. I enjoyed my talks with the jungles more than my friends”.

This intimacy of Bez Baruah’s relationship with the wilderness is reflected in the woodcut images he  crafts. As Waswo,  points out, it is as “if the artist has trekked us through the jungle to his most favoured haunts, asking us to stay silent and observe what he treasures and wishes to reveal……Chandan has heard the songs of birds, the peep of frogs, the swift clicking buzz of beetles and the rustle through the leaves. He has heard trees falling in the forest.”

And yet, I sense that the affability he formed with the woodlands, besides being his sanctuary from the buzzing city of Guwahati, was also a means for him to communicate with the forces of nature and through this, he formed an unconventional bond with an absent mother.  The countryside in her verdure fullness, became the parent. The metaphor of trees falling, becomes as much about deforestation as about loss that human beings encounter, where the demise of a mother is an irreplaceable one. What does a child in the fourth standard do to quell his grief and get on with the business of living? How does he relate to other children at his tender age of nine, who are undoubtedly oblivious of the despair he holds in every crevice of his being: he talks to the trees that stand tall in the untrammelled hills that surround him. And when they start falling, it is as if he is losing his nurturer over and over again. 

The physicality of carving the felled timber becomes  a means to retain this connect with the tree, as also a means to honour and mourn the loss of his sanctuary, his parent. The prints are not mere images of the wilderness that he once lived amidst - a reminder of what we could lose in our carelessness, they are the precious memories of a child that grew up without his mother, who forged a bond with this vegetal environment instead. Gouging out the wood, chiselling indents into its surface, permit him explore recollections as also express his anguish over the fragility of life; something he is all too familiar with. In the process of carving, he both caresses the wood and destroys it. The tree is no longer a living thing, but its memory lives on through the woodcut print – the proverbial paradox of life!  

Initially Chandan used wood blocks to carve with, but when he moved to the National Capital Region, he found it easier to source MDF or medium-density fibre-board. Although I have not seen his earlier work and whether or not he was able to achieve the same fineness of lines and details, the smooth surface of this reconstituted board,  made by fusing fine wood fibre and glue, can be manipulated much easier than actual woodblocks. And the artist has used this to maximum effect with his photorealist prints. 

While the natural habitat dominates most prints, there are some deviations too. In the middle of extensive shrubbery, one can spy the roof of a cottage. In P-II Woodcut print (14 x 20  inches, 2020), the fibre has been scooped out to imply both the crudeness of the construction as to also retain the  hallmark of the traditional woodcut print. Here, the tools that hollowed out the wood leave a distinctive stamp – of history, of naivety and lacking the finessed technique the artist has otherwise cultivated. In the midst of ultrafine carving, this act seems a deliberate harking back to the past and of imaginatively preserving a jungle refuge. A home away from home, perhaps more comforting than the four walls that defined one for the artist. Surrounded by a thick undergrowth, there is no way into this abode nor out. All one sees of what lies within, is a stamp of darkness. Black ink that is retained on the surface of the board – the area that is left intact and not carved or torn away from the resource. The hedgerow expands and lengthens to create an incomplete bower over the cottage and the space in between is hollowed out with a Dremel tool, to create tiny dots. Instead of stars twinkling, I like to think of them as fireflies in the sky.

Bez Barhua is not content with intricately carving and printing single-block prints that are approximately two square feet in dimension, he ventures to create larger landscapes with four such blocks and the precision with which he does so, is riveting. The eye goes over and over these quadriptych prints. The precision of the print and meticulously engraved detail denotes a superhuman effort. I work in hand-crafting textiles and can get utterly frustrated  with the laboured pace or if I fail in trying to achieve the desired modicum of perfection. In this digital age, where machines do anything as good or better than the hand, and most hand-crafting skills and produce serve as mere nostalgia or novelty, it would require incredible discipline to persist with such painstaking endeavour and level of proficiency. Bez Baruah’s tools range from traditional Swiss and Japanese tools and those which he has developed himself. And, even though MDF is markedly easier to carve than the wood blocks he earlier sourced from Assam, I just cannot get my head around his determination to achieve this kind of realistic representation. Especially with digital cameras and photographic prints rendering such effort superfluous. But, the artist deliberately creates this photorealistic likeness, working with photographs that he himself has taken (possibly in recent times).

Yet, if one zooms into the images, putting your eye to the glass that contains them, the impression of marks are minimized, rendering them more abstract than real. Dense foliage is not a collection of perfectly carved leaves as the camera can reproduce, but myriad amoebic squiggles floating over the mountainside. However, stepping back, the impression of every single foliole engraved in perfect detail, is recreated, by the same marks that do not remotely resemble a leaf as recognized by the human eye. Chandan Bez Baruah prefers illusion to exactitude.

In other prints, peering close, multiple cross-hatched lines appear to be placed ad hoc, which along with the amoebic marks on the hills become  cognizant of the output of a contemporary state of mind. But, look again and you realise that each line, each mark, isn’t random or carved with indignation, impatience or angst, reflective of the average modern temperament. It is a kind of meditation. Where each line or mark is evocative of the character of the jungle as he knew it, as Chandan remembers. Looking back on these scenes with a sense of inaccessibility, emulating the photographic capture of light from the surface and texture of foliage as seen from a distance. More illusory and intangible than figurative, is a conscientious attempt at reiterating and recalling the magical comfort provided by the jungle. Where every stem that crossed over the other, did so because that was the only way it could develop. Able to chart its relatively unhindered path because no-one came along to way to prune it, to make it bend to this convention or other. Every leaf, or evocation thereof, that Bez Baruah carved is a deliberation. Every dot is essential to the randomness of the wild, unimpeded growth that nurtured his soul. Snuggling into the ‘anchal’ of an absent parent, exemplified as the omniscient spirit in the forest’s ample lap of nature.

Viraj Naik's Imagined World, Sunaparanta Goa Centre for Arts, Goa

 

 

 

The first time that I saw the works of Viraj Naik, was at Gallery Nvya in New Delhi, at the start of the millennium. The recent solo exhibition titled ‘Ordinary Superheroes’ curated  by Leandre D’ Souza, was the Goan artist’s first showing after a hiatus of fifteen years, and was hosted at Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts, by its patrons Dipti and Dattaraj Salgaoncar. The collection of ninety-five ink drawings, etchings and sculptural works on display, was a continuum of his fascination for the anthropomorphic forms of animal-man, which follows a primeval tradition.

 

pen, ink and graphite, 20cm x 29cm,  2018

 

In the modern world, he is preceded by Picasso, who not only painted the ‘Minotaur’ or ‘Bull of Minos’ (conceived by Minos's wife when impregnated by a bull), but is said to have identified with the human and animal principles of the creature that donned the head of a bull on the body of a man. However, ancient man was also familiar with such human hybrids, depictions of which were present in antediluvian lore, appearing in cave paintings as early as the Late Stone Age, approximately 10,000 to 50,000 years ago. Ethnologists conjecture that these portrayals - of beings with human and animal features were not necessarily physical representations of mythical hybrids, but were most likely  attempts to depict shamans in the process of acquiring the mental and spiritual attributes of various beasts or ‘power animals’. Of reaching altered states of consciousness, in order to perceive and interact with the realm of spirit, channelling these transcendental energies into the physically manifest world.

 

enkindle, Etching, 10cm x 8cm, 2016

 

Remains of mythological hybrids have also been found in prehistoric burial sites, where skeletons of horse-cows, sheep-cows, and a six-legged sheep had been formed by joining together body parts from carcasses of different species. A practice that is believed to have been an offering to ancient gods.

 

pen, ink and graphite, 20cm x 29cm,  2018

 

In the midst of viewing this exhibition, we  were celebrating Ganesh Chaturthi across Goa, with much faith, fervour and colour. Known as Ganapati, Vinayaka, or by numerous other names, this elephant-headed god of wisdom, knowledge and new beginnings is one of the best-known and worshipped deities of the Hindu pantheon, especially in Maharashtra and Goa. A short while later, I was in Delhi celebrating Diwali which in North India is a celebration of Rama’s return to Ayodhya. In the epic Ramayana,  the simian god Hanuman is credited for aiding his victory over the demon Ravana and safe return of Rama’s consort Sita.  Both Ganesh and Hanuman are part animal, part human. Animals or their anthropomorphic forms are an integral part of the Hindu pantheon as either god's in themselves or vahanas or vehicles of god's. Many of Vishnu's avatars are also part human and part animal -  Matsya, sometimes portrayed with a  human head  and torso with a fish body below waist, saves Manu the son of god from the great deluge. Kurma appears in the form of a tortoise or turtle to support the foundation for the cosmos and the cosmic churning stick (Mount Mandara) for the Samudra Manthan.  Others, are Varaha (with a boar's head) and Narasimha (with lion's head). In addition, the mythical cow, Kamadhenu, who is considered the mother of all other cattle, is often portrayed as a cow with human head, peacock tail and bird wings. There are many such examples where much of this culture and worship is said to have arisen from a policy to protect animals.

 

 pen, ink and graphite, 20cm x 15cm,  2019

 

While Naik concedes his fascination with the study of mythological gods with animal-like figurines - be it Hindu, Greek or Roman, he also says that it is his perceived relationship  between human and animals that emerge in his hybridisation, bringing out the animal instincts that he feels all humans possess. “For instance, if I feel a person is aggressive like a tiger I would depict him with a head of a tiger" says Naik. Adding a simplistic, contemporary angle to the mythological ‘untamed lion man’ ‘Urmahlullu’  who was, contrarily,  a guardian spirit in Mesopotamian mythology, where  its image was used to ward off destructive demons, including the ogre of death. He is also found in seals of the Indus Valley, evolving into a lion-centaur goddess wearing a head-dress with a long pendant whose body merges with that of the tiger. An image that has similarities to what later became associated with Durga, the goddess of war.

 

Despite the antiquity that precedes his anthropomorphic renditions,  Viraj Naik is not deifying his forms.  Nor is he enacting some shamanistic ritual to connect with any power animals. Some of his depictions are socio-political statements about the animal nature of the contemporary human race, including quirks  that materialize through his imagined beings.  Societies are populated by all kinds of people. Some, aware of their socially undesirable behavioural patterns, manage to project a carefully cultivated but false personality. Presenting his etchings and drawings as a mirror  to detect deceitful, fearful, foolish, conceited or angry animal traits within the homo sapiens frame, Naik could also be suggesting that, like animals we too possess the ability to sense or ‘sniff out’ such untruth.

 

However, his  ‘Super Heroes’ are not necessary pleasant to behold. If you allow yourself the indulgence to get squeamish, it’s like beholding creatures that somehow got mixed up in the creative process. You wonder if the forces of life are experimenting, if Naik is using his own artistic ingenuity to consider what kind of species he would like to inhabit the universe. Speculating, why these perversions would find any value in a world where men and women have devised ways to perfect any perceived imperfections in their bodies and, where animals that presently pervade the planet, do not remotely resemble the organisms that Viraj envisages.

 

pen, ink and graphite,
20cm x 15cm,  2018.

 

What can one make of a fish-face with humanoid teeth, wearing a necktie – or it could have been a fin protruding from inside the buttoned-up white shirt and black suit-coat, of the monochromatic interpretation. Imagine being a  gill-bearing aquatic craniate who swims freely in the vast Arabian Sea, and you force yourself to wear a necktie and suit. But without the biceps and triceps of the human arms, empty sleeves of the jacket hang listlessly. Whether the fish-man had legs or tail is left to conjecture as the drawing focusses only on the torso. While the image generates a sense of the absurd and even as the implied vision of a slippery creature caught within the confines of a corporate suit, does percolate through, it doesn’t really seem odd because the proverbial world of commerce is rife with such characters, isn’t it?

 

 

Not all the animal features were as easily identifiable. There was one face wearing a cap too small for his head. This, in turn,  was too large for its  quadruped body, which was part animal with fur and paws in the forelegs and two sturdy and stocky hind limbs with their feet shod with socks and shoes. His profile displayed a smallish eye, pointed nose and a smile that seemed a bit too cheesy. He was surrounded by trees and shrubbery and I had the distinct impression that he had just stepped out for a game of golf or some such, when the artist transformed his body thus. And, the man remained smiling or unaware, or plain simple didn’t care what he looked like or was seen as. He seemed blissfully absorbed in the machinations of his own extra-large head to care what anyone thought, or notice if anyone else even existed.

 

pen, ink and graphite, 29cm x 20cm,  2019

 

For most part however, Naik focussed only on presenting the face, with no body to distinguish the kind of animal he intended. The eyes in one or two such portraits were definitely shifty. One face donned an adaptation of a fez cap, clenching his teeth, and the other had short horns on his head – actually the horned face didn’t look nearly as shifty as the other, more like the furtive glance of someone scared. If this wasn’t enough to  intrigue, you were confronted by a the otherwise menacing apparition of a boar with an unusually docile, subjugated expression. It had an alligator or crocodile’s body that was stood upon by a diminutive elephant and an oversized parrot with relatively shortened horse legs and hooves, but nonetheless, gleefully towering above the dwarfed tusker, who glowered.

 





 

What kind of world is this? What's the necessity of contemplating such unlikely forms that colonize Naik's creative biosphere. If it weren't for Viraj's perfect drawing skills, these images would merely intrigue on an intellectually superficial plane. But precisely because his technique was so marvellous, one got up close and peered at lines, crossing, hatching and layering to create form and shade and superlative textures. His marks were masterful and this ensured that the viewer didn’t  leave the gallery space horrified, disgusted or plain bored. It was through the process of observing, of examining those lines and their gradations that one became less conscious of the oddness of these anthropomorphic and zoomorphic creatures, to maybe find empathy, parity and perhaps some insight, whilst acknowledging the artist’s prowess to  draw you into his weird-weird world.

 

The inventive presentations may look unnatural, which is perhaps an effective tool to get your attention and nudge you cogitate. The images are such that, once you get involved with their characters, you cannot ignore them. Although the artist suggested we find ourselves in these forms, I for one, was unable to locate myself through the visualised hybrids, partly because, barring a few obvious associations, it was unclear what exact animal and its propensities he was expressing through them. The forms were not evocative of organisms or traits that one could easily relate to.  However, if some viewers did spot a measure of resemblance, it would not be in their outer manifestations but in their sense of self or as perceived by others.

 

 pen, ink and graphite, 20cm x 15cm,  2019

 

While employing the elemental modus of human portraiture, the artist caricatured the traditional features with animal physiognomies, which were not always jarring but sometimes even amusing. If we are indeed so, can we not see the humour in our warped-ness? After all, which one of us doesn’t carry some kind of dysfunctional baggage and subconsciously play this out to disastrous or embarrassing consequences. Within his philosophical renderings and pondering upon human-animistic inclinations Naik reminds, that biologically, humans are animals too. And like these quadrupeds, we too commit acts which are an inherent aspect of our natural disposition. But it is the moral code that he proposed, questioning whether our inborn tendencies are acceptable, simply because they are intrinsic to our nature, is where I felt  more than a trifle miffed.

 

For, surely it was with the wisdom of understanding that it is only through acceptance of how we are, that we can hope to control the unnatural expression of human reactions that, an ancient treatise on the arts, such as  the Natya Shastra (compiled between 200 BCE and 200 CE) listed eight bhavas (emotions or sentiments) with eight corresponding rasas (aesthetic flavour evoking emotion or feeling) where, love and laughter are depicted alongside anger, disgust, terror and sorrow. There was apparently no censoring or shaming for any expressive response in those times. Therefore one imagines a limited degree of suppression and consequential hyperbolic emotive outbursts.

 

But Viraj Naik is not alone in voicing such ideas. There appears to be  a growing trend in  contemporary society, to advocate suppressing rather than expressing the uncomfortable-to-deal-with feelings, like anger and sorrow. It is this, more than anything else, which creates the overstatement of passions which then manifest as ugly or unmanageable. For instance, anger as a response is not abhorrent in itself. It is a very useful feeling that reveals what appeals and what doesn’t, which aids in setting personal boundaries. This emotive response only becomes disruptive when, unacknowledged and repressed, it finds articulation as vitriolic rage.

 

While it was drawings and etchings that formed the major corpus on view, one small gallery was dedicated to digitally worked pictographs. I found these fascinating. And, their dark auras didn’t require much analysing or scrutiny. Spaces and mythologies were superimposed and probably came from varying eras of civilization and across cultures, but the specifics seemed secondary to the atmosphere which enveloped you within the gallery space that was occupied by these pictographs.

 

 

Raurava, pictograph, 25cm x 28cm, 2019.



Drawings and etchings require a laborious and mostly meditative process of execution - where thoughts and feelings come and go as the hand continues with its work. The correlation of hand and mind at work where the procedure is relatively mechanical, as in these imaginative drawings - of a technique perfected over years of accomplishment and experimentation, is recognised across spectra of hand-crafting to be a process that aids the sublimation of one’s emotions. In contrast to the pictographic compositions these renderings seemed too finessed, merely skirting the fringes of a much deeper hypothesis. A premise which was disclosed effectively through the dramatic tones of the digitized images. Viewing their dark and foreboding vistas, which exaggerated rather than reduced the intensity of sentiment, the ominous tonality and ghostly apparitions became an inevitable encounter with the menacing aspects of mankind. In effect, the pictographs brought to the fore, the kind of indigence that could befall our world, if humans with untrammelled tendencies are allowed to dominate the planet.

Building Bridges - Exhibition Review - Ceramics

 

Neha Kudchadkar

‘Bridges’ was an exhibition of ceramics held at Stainless Gallery, New Delhi. This exhibition showcased the work of fifty studio potters who have trained with Deborah Smith and Ray Meeker at The Golden Bridges Pottery studio in Pondicherry.

 

 



Reyaz Badruddin

 

 

Playful porcelain and pen doodles by Neha Kudchadkar reminiscent of containers defied the weightiness of them. Reyaz Badaruddin had flattened the cup. A hollow container, usually thrown on the wheel had been painted on flat clay tiles.  Veena Chandran used a large, traditional earthen pot-form. But she flattened it out as if breaking the clay pot, and then smeared the moist clay with her hands in a gesture that sought to explore the potential of clay, beyond traditionally prescribed norms. Shayonti Salve’s thrown but altered forms were a reflection of the duality she experiences where, as she said: “my head is often tormented by the times we live in, while my heart tried to comfort it”

 



Veena Chandran




Shayonti Salve

 

 

Pottery is one of the oldest art forms in India. Known as Prajapati or Kumbhar, the potter played a significant role in ancient society. However, potters no longer command the same reverence that was once accorded to them, nor do contemporary potters continue the tradition of making pots for daily use. “Today our students are about as interested in making functional stoneware as the sons of Indian village potters are interested in continuing in their fathers’ footsteps”, say Smith and Meeker. This quantum shift from the traditional, ‘form follows function’ approach, towards the more ornamental and conceptual approach in contemporary ceramics, where ‘ideas’ supersede ‘function’, makes an interesting comment on the social and cultural values of our time.

 

 

Ray Meeker

 

Golden Bridges, now a preeminent centre for ceramics, was set up in the mid 1970’s by Deborah Smith with her friend Ray Meeker, at the invitation of ‘The Mother’ spiritual head of the Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry. Cited as an exhibition of ceramics rooted in the Golden Bridges tradition and a tribute to the influence of Meeker and Smith one expected to find a thread that knitted together the work on display. To the contrary, the diversity of scale and style belied the fact that each of the fifty potters had been trained by the same two ceramic artists and more particularly, were trained using a specialized wood-firing technique.  Among the fifty potters participating, were Anjani Khanna, Michel Hutin, Aditi Saraogi, Manisha Bhattacharya, Adil Writer, Kristine Michael, Nehal Rachh, P. Daroz, Vineet Kacker and Sylvia Kerkar. Although primarily trained in making wood-fired studio-pottery, working in an urban context many of them have

explored gas and electric firings to evolve a differing aesthetic.

 

 

P.Daroz, From the 'Sea Bed' Series

 

 

 

 

Michel Hutin, a Frenchman who has lived and worked in Auroville for over twenty-five years, joins soft, undulating slabs of clay such that the interacting lines create rhythm, melody and counterpoint. P. Daroz has a passion for seascapes. Drawing upon memories of trips to various coasts and cliffs, his ceramic pieces from the ‘Sea Bed’ series are abstract in their presentation. For Nehal Rach an advertising graduate, who found her calling working in clay, pottery is not just something she does, but says that clay-work defines her.  Reyaz Badaruddin responds to urban spaces by evoking the disappearing fields of the agrarian landscape he grew up in. Each of these potters has moved beyond making a conventional vessel, to present abstract ideas where it is no longer about pots per se, but clay as art.

 

 

Neha Kudchadkar

 

The local potter and ceramic artist co-exist, but the local potter is not an artist in the contemporary sense of the word. He is technically skilled but doesn’t employ self-expression which is the basis of much art today. Ironically, this facet once deemed “pitiable rather than heroic” in ancient India, as cited by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, is what is being keenly explored by contemporary ceramic artists. Pottery is essentially a skill-centric craft where the kind of clay used, kiln and techniques of firing, as well as glazes, play a significant role in the eventual product and how it looks. The firing process can be as intense as eighteen to seventy-five hours, with potters keeping vigil and maintaining logbooks. All of which is rarely mentioned in relation to exhibitions of clay work.  In positioning ceramics within the context of contemporary art, the technical process employed is seemingly superseded by the concepts explored.

 

 That the medium has evolved to transcend its functional origins, is a tribute to the creative minds that work with clay, as much as it is a yearning to bring attention and value to hands that have moulded  earth into vessel for centuries. However, the expression of self in the works on display, did not articulate an exploration authentic enough, to speak the language of contemporary art.

 

Manisha Bhattacharya

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[This exhibition was held in September 2014]

Accidental Perfection - Mrinalini Mukherjee [Conversation/ Review - Nature Morte]

 

Palm Scapes, an exhibition of Bronze sculptures by veteran artist Mrinalini Mukherjee at Nature Morte, New Delhi [October 29th – November 23rd 2013] compelled me initiate a conversation with the artist.  Appendages of a Palm tree crafted so precisely, where every line of its delicate ridges appeared as though liquid bronze had been poured over a live specimen, aroused my curiosity. How was this perfection achieved?

Surrendering the knowing of the intellect in deference to the inner voice, which paves the path for perfection, is ancient wisdom. Often referred to as happenstance, it is not coincidence, but humility allowing perfection to manifest. But, rarely do artists say it just happened, in quite the way Mukherjee concedes.

The exhibition comprised a handful of bronzes from the Palm series and two works - ‘Bouquet’ I and II, from an earlier body of work. Palm Scape-V [49 x 39 x 30 inches, 2013] was a majestically crafted limb of the Palm, reclining as if on its spine. Its knee-like flexibility allowed it to bend and rest its ‘foot’ on a pedestal, appearing almost human. Placed in the centre of the basement gallery, the expansive space around it, created an aura of authority. In part, it evoked the ‘Machli Palm’ morphing into something that had little or no resemblance to the Palm species at all, but seemed akin to “fossilized trophies dug from a prehistoric swamp or the robotic armour of an alien orchid creature.” 

 

The ‘head’ of ‘Palm Scape-V’ opened up gladiola-like in full bloom. It’s sensuous, but rigid petal formations stretching themselves, reaching for the skies. The lower section grew into an amply fleshed, leaf-like calyx through which shoots emerged and kissed the table in a quasi reverential way. The leaf-calyx became the focus of attention not just for its placement at the centre of the limb but, because the extremely fine texture, where each fine line was delicately etched to utter perfection, commanded the eye’s focus. I asked Mukherjee how she achieved such replication of this texture. She replied saying this was not intentional: it could have been cast in plaster from an original specimen of the Palm and then in bronze, adding that when she is working, the forms being carved in wax take on the texture of the surface she is working upon and could not recollect exactly what surface created this.

Mrinalini Mukherjee is well-known for her elaborate, knotted and

plaited fibre sculptures. She has also experimented with ceramics, moving onto working with bronze. She carries forward the tradition of working with the hand, which both textiles and ceramics necessitate, and moulds the wax sculpture, before casting it in bronze, entirely with her bare fingers. If any tools are involved, they are only used to remove plaster stuck in ridges and hollow spaces of the finished piece. Here, she uses dentistry tools to extricate the residue.  Working with the hand is important to this artist who needs direct contact with her material. Where, through the conversation between the epidermal layers of her fingers and the soft skin of wax she ‘feels’ the form and its texture into being. 

 

The transition from fibre to bronze was not seamless but one that generated a great deal of experimentation and capacity to explore different media. Knotting for hours at a stretch, of fingers intertwining with jute to create large, anthropomorphic vegetal forms was laborious and time consuming. A chance opportunity in 1996, found Mukherjee responding well to the immediacy of handling clay, creating large pieces. But she began working with wax to make smaller, less time-consuming work - necessitated by a personal situation, which eventually led to casting in bronze through the lost wax process.  

 

In ‘Palm Scapes’, which marked a decade of working with bronze,  the work of hands that have felt and touched fibre in a very intimate way was evident -  as if thread had been cast in bronze. I wanted to discuss her experience from Fibre to Bronze. She was reluctant but a brief conversation ensued which was inspiring. Not because she revealed some elaborate secrets, but, for the very simplicity with which she spoke. Of how she had let chance lead her from one thing to the next, undeterred by technical limitations. Allowing this to re-define the way the medium she was experimenting with was going to be used. Mukherjee disclosed that ceramic artist Ray Meeker began his larger-than-life pieces after she had taken the scale of clay onto another dimension. 

 

Palm Scape-I [20.5 x 62 x 48 inches, 2013] recalls a Palm in flower, however the ‘flowers’ appear hostile and the leafy calyx is menacingly serpent-like. On the opposite end of the flowering tip was a stem extended about three feet in length, with a droopy head-like form at the far end which had a distinct similarity with the male sexual appendage. Despite the traditionally female association of a plant in flower, the form itself carried rather masculine attributes and like most of the sculptures on view appeared androgynous. The voluptuous folds and orifices of Palm Scape-VII [33 x 36 x 13 inches, 2013] could be interpreted as a feminine form, but there was harshness reflected through the use of metal and the grotesque and formidable aspect of the sculptural form. The intensified detailing evocative of a piercing gaze created an otherworldly aura, further fleshing out the masculine. The effect was ambiguous because for Mukherjee, plants have their own sexuality.

Studying these bronzed plant limbs, I was intensely aware of a

persona that was near-human.  Rigid and unmoving – stilled in time, sometimes evoking the vagina, sometimes a penile form and sometimes nothing more than a bouquet of textures, bringing forth myriad ideas  underlying which was a sense of reverence. The sculptures created a sense of awe but, Mukherjee does not speak of either her practice or her observation of palm trees encountered on her drives across the country, with the same devotion they invoke in the viewer. On the contrary, she is very matter-of-fact with words. The interplay of the sensual or erotic and meditative that manifests in the sculptures through attention to detail and intensity of gaze – making a connection that evokes divinity or puja as it were, is not part of her conscious practice either.

Mukherjee records her observations and translates them into her sculptures by neither drawings nor photographs. But driving around Kerala, Goa and other places, she just looked. Different palm forms found their way into each sculpture and it’s hard to say where one began and the other ended or when it took on a character that went beyond that of the palm, or that of any plant-form itself. 

 

Mukherjee doesn’t define the forms she doesn’t deify them either, but the works exhibited evoked an unseen presence. Some of the creative process is controlled but mostly not. Because she likes to look back at her work with a sense of awe, which is probably why her bronze sculptures bring forth a similar response in the viewer too.

A Misplaced Universe [ Review - Jayashree Burman, Gallery Art Alive]

Vibrant colours, exotic detail and a folk-art-like frontal faces whose large white flattened eyes looked directly at me, was how I encountered Jayashree Burman’s mythical universe at Lalit Kala Academy, presented by Art Alive Gallery. I decided to view the exhibition from top to bottom and was able to see her earlier work first, which allowed me to reflect on the extent to which Jayshree has explored the more western oriented ideas of modern art, towards a manifestation of her Bengali antecedents; searching for an idiom which will nuance her own peculiar identity within this. Ina Puri’s essay reveals that given the background she came from, Jayshree has led a rather unconventional life and in her own way is quietly spirited rather than meekly accepting the traditional ideals her family’s culture espoused.

 

Women in India’s metropolises may consider themselves emancipated for their assertion in breaking the glass ceiling in the corporate world, but is the Indian woman really freed from the rituals and tradition that are deeply etched in our psyche? Does she even want to be, is the question Jayshree’s water colours present.
 

She draws in situ while travelling; never takes photographs, confessing that she does not know how to. In her studio she then translates the people she has seen around her and drawn. They are people like you and me, her maid, the dhobi and panwalla or anyone else she encounters who become integral to her mythical universe, where she presents her everyday world, seen though the perspective of senses moulded through traditional lore and its iconography. I found this interesting for even if externally we have adopted the sensibilities of a western world through their steel and glass high rises, malls and a culture that is reminiscent of an industrial and a digital civilization, we have lived with these inherited God and Goddesses far longer than the brutal icons of our modern world - a reminder that those centuries of ritual are not that easy to erase.

However, the physical indicators of the contemporary world are missing. We do not see anything that immediately locates the work in this present era. If you look deeper you will see the relative freedom with which Burman interprets the Gods and Goddesses because she does not start out to paint one. The starting point could well have been a sister-in-law or a friend, but while working, the form becomes infused with notions that emerge from deep within her reservoir of memory and habit, evoking ideas reminiscent of idols and images that she grew up with. These are then presented through a visual language and technique that she has evolved and is comforted by. The loosely painted background is worked intricately, but again loosely with pen and ink and does not speak of the discipline or power and accomplishments of the inherited gods and goddesses that she represents. Here Jayashree is perhaps questioning this world versus ours where we pray to them as stone idols as opposed to respecting each other as manifestations of this spirit.

 

To visually locate Burman’s heavily decorated watercolours in an art milieu that is preoccupied with a material world, concept art, installations and digital media is virtually impossible. But scratch the surface and there are subtle resonances of this in the way she

 works. The randomly painted watercolour base and restless scratching of the ‘Rotring’ pen on the painted surface are indicative of the influence of a frenzy that has gripped us all. This leads to a perception that her art is an escape into a mythical universe where she does not have to acknowledge this, but can inhabit the world of memories, healing old wounds and reconciling with the enormous changes that have been forced upon us in a bid to compete with a world that does not have cognizance of this deeper spiritual connect.

 

The problem that I have with this imagery is that it is really not exploring the outer world enough and therefore is distanced from its realities, both physical and emotional. While she does acknowledge this rather perfunctorily, she appears to be out of sync with the aesthetics that govern our everyday living and inhabits a world of imagination almost as if it’s too much for her to bear. It is a personal choice, but one which positions her work more in terms of nostalgia for the exotic, a past that has long gone, rather than a tapestry of the exciting contemporary world. The culture and physical dimensions of life today have changed so much; does she not wish to explore these nuances at all?
 

 

Guy de Maupassant in commenting upon the imposing presence of the newly built Eiffel tower in Paris said that the best way to escape it was to get inside it. If she takes a leaf out of Maupassant’s book and plunges right into this teeming universe, throbbing with its own peculiar rhythm and dissonant harmonies, Jayanshree Burman may well find that the presently intimidating, rapidly transforming contemporary world is as vibrant and engaging as the nostalgic one she inhabits; discovering and revealing yet more facets of her spirited herself.