COLOUR
not just a pigment
but a vital painting element
in a newly acquired language
under contending powers of darkness and light.
Tender greys and greens
distilled browns and reds
with blacks that sustain,
Constantly shifting equations.
Converging dualities, affinities
questions and answers.
LIFE
opening up
choice and denial
discipline and effort
unfolding inner space
to corresponding impulses of colour perception
Memories, visions, impressions
embodied signs and symbols,
tribal images, auspicious hand prints,
calligraphy, grilled screens, the churning wheel,
mud walls, windows,
the coiled rope.
Extension of awareness
suspense.
The metal plate in gestation
receptive white space, a receptacle.
And an emerging concept
organic, condensed, radiant
is released as
ENERGY
"The quest of the essential obsessed me. The revelation of Indian concepts, iconography, signs and symbols fortified the search. Nature as 'Prakriti', the supreme generating force, the embryonic energy contained in the seed, the male-female polarity, the ever present phenomenons in Nature - germination, gestation and birth - transformed my concept of 'nature-seen' to 'nature-imagined".
"Though I've been
traditional in my life as well as in my artistic expression, I am open
to the changes of our times. Like most Indians, I am part ancient and
part very modern. We are great assimilators of inputs and ideas, not to
speak of foreign invasions and cultures. If I had in any way felt that
my particular vision, or that the geometry, colour, form, tone and space
values that I have built up over 50 years of intensive work, were in any
way being compromised by the computer, I would have rejected the experience
outright.
On the contrary it helped crystalize my conceptions, and opened up new
dimensions of expressiveness that would not have been possible ordinarily."
"Even in the work of these saints, the bindu occupies pride of place,
The bindu is the symbol not only of Hindu spirituality, but also of Indian
art, aesthetics and awareness of life."
"It is absolutely primordial in its nature. When I paint the bindu,
I am aware that I am literally in the womb of time, with no disturbance
of sound or sight and that I am creating a spark of divinity. I am not
painting for the buyer or the lover of my art. I paint to go on a journey
within myself. I am excited that when I paint the bindu on my space –
which is the canvas – in the solitude of my studio, it is an act
of supreme consecration. Wherever my painting hangs, I create a temple.”
“I went to France because that country taught me the technique and science of painting. The immortal artists of France like Cézanne knew the secret of the construction of a painting, an aspect which is weak in Indian painting. But despite my French experience, the substance of my paintings comes straight from India.”
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