An
exhibition of paintings on not-so-‘beautiful’ themes
by
C K Purandare
Sea-shores,
sun-rises and sun-sets, flower-vases or depiction
of mythological and historical scenes is what
one normally expects in a painting. This attitude
has its roots in the social value-system. Usually
it is the middle or the upper strata of the society
who decide what can pass as art. Economic well-being
of this class, their stability, their ideology
decide what is ‘proper’ as art.
It
is not really acceptable to express social misery
through art. Collective misery does not merit
as a legitimate subject of art even as individual
misery does. That is why themes like heart-breaks,
depression, mental ill-balance are ‘approved’ for
art but not the Indian partition, Godhra massacre,
Nandigram, AIDS… Art dealing with such
topics is either castigated as ‘leftist’ or
is disqualified as ‘art’ altogether.
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‘Foundations'
by C K Purandare
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'Prison'
by C K Purandare
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Sixty
years after independence people trudge miles
for drinking water, thousands of children start
unhealthy life due to malnutrition, corruption,
religion, ignorance are the tools to play power-games – this
is our reality. Map of the world has yet other
social miseries. Hundreds of thousands of innocents
die futile deaths in imposed wars. Common man
in developed countries is either indifferent
to such global inequity or looks down on developing
countries like ours. This reality is disturbing.
My attempt is to record this inequity through
painting…
I
have also done paintings on world class literature.
These are imaginary literary portraits on characters
from Dostoyevsky’s ‘The Idiot’ [a
London publisher used my portrait of Prince Myshkin
for the cover-page of a book on Dostoyevsky]
, Canetti’s Auto da Fe, etc. Many of these
paintings have been displayed in a number of
exhibitions in Scotland – in Edinburgh,
Glasgow, Perth, Aberdeen, etc.
It
is impossible to take all the paintings to one
place. And it is very difficult to bring bigger
works to India. You can see all my work on my
web-site though. Viewers from all over the world
have commented on my paintings, these comments
can also be seen on my site. Even if most of
the paintings are anti-west many people from
America, Canada, Europe, Australia have appreciated
my work. Viewers even from remote countries like
Argentina, Romania, Israel have conveyed their
positive responses.
Art,
to me, is a means of communication. I do not
rate expression of ‘beauty’ through
art very highly. There are two main reasons for
this position. One – verbal language is
the main means of communication but many times
language creates more confusion than clarifications.
Language is alright for daily mundane transactions.
For example, if I say ‘this is a round
table’ both the listener and I get it alright.
There is no ambiguity in it. But try telling
someone ‘I do not like red walls’ and
his understanding of ‘red’ and mine
are more likely to be different than same. This
communication stays ambiguous. This is the limit
of verbal language, an inadequacy. My attempt
is to see if this shortfall can be overcome through
painting.
Then,
I think the given definition or concept of ‘beauty’ needs
to be reassessed. Beauty is taken to be an integral
part of art. I doubt if a universal definition
of beauty is possible though. Over a decade I
have been living in Britain. I have seen paintings,
sculptures of world-renowned artists in Europe
and America. Their concept of beauty is different
than the Indian concept. African and chinese
concepts would be still different. Still, as
said earlier, this concept is defined by the
elite in any society. In other words, there is
nothing sacrosanct about this definition and
it can be challenged and changed.
And
then, the topics I handle can hardly qualify
to be called ‘beautiful’. Social
injustice, inequality, poverty, violence are
my topics. There is nothing beautiful in all
this….
The forthcoming exhibition has paintings on themes
like Nandigram, Iraq war, Kashmir…etc.
[translation
of an article in Loksatta – Aavishkar –July14,
2007]
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