Living with death

The young city artist Srinivasa Prasad B H in a very contemporary manner has been working with timeless indigenous symbolism amid rough, rustic objects, rituals and materials embedded in organic rhythms. He examines this archaic reality in confrontation with as well as continuance in the present, also urban world, its substances and sensibilities. His approach seems to be as literal as it is metaphoric, as general as it is personally involved. In differing proportions over the years he has used sculpture and installation, theatrical arrangement and environment proper, involving the idea of the art making process in terms of evocation and of actual performance. More often than not, these qualities overlap and mingle.

His new exhibition at Galleryske (March 2 to April 10) powerfully brings such elements together towards a simpler but deeper and much more coherent pervasiveness. Its spirit participates in the quintessentially Indian character of life whose exposed vivacity, matter, behaviour and strife acknowledge the presence of death in the ever permeable cycle. The title piece - ‘Payana’, or journey, encapsulates this in a spectacular and moving way. The massive old bullock cart is overloaded with mundane domestic possessions, some appearing to have heavily grown into it while some scatter away as if floating. Everything has been tenderly wrapped-packed in coarse black rug fabric, as a dimming and glowing kerosene lamp throws hesitant shadows. So, there is an oscillation from sharp-contoured graphic properties to volumes and to diffusion in flat darkness without hue.

The scene looks like the course of living manifesting itself through a strong but tentative accumulation of things and effort to be lost and regained only about to vanish into a black hole.

The pulsating light and shadows give it a sense of duration that holds the past and remains suspended between motion and stasis. The sculpture that verges on installation thus becomes a performing object, its residual theatricality letting the viewer both observe it and identify with.

   The togetherness of living and dying finds another image in the video ‘Thirteenth Day’ which alludes to the feeding of the departed through the survivors’ ritual feast. The slow, real time shot of a hand gathering food from a leaf plate conveys it all, again turning into an acting object in a large measure thanks to the round dish being the frame for the visuals. The same means succeeds too in the ‘Cleansing’ installation. Projected on a wall of old newspapers meant for recycling, a video superimposes and blends the image of a commode, of the artist shaving his head and gurgling, and of garbage.

Rather in tune with the country’s ethos and reality, the recurrent sound of flushing enhances the obvious, brutally commonplace means against the lofty, sincere or ritualistic aim of purification, both aspects of existence being complementary.

Sound engagement

Unlike most Lalit Kala Academy shows promoting democratic mediocrity, one brought by its Kerala branch (CKP, March 1 to 7) was well chosen from among less known but engaged and form-wise cultured, quite contemporary painters. Relating to ecology, political issues and individual experience of reality, some of the works may be too design-based, while some either literal in message or cryptic (Hochimin P H, Saju Ayyampilly, K K Sasi, Sujil S, Venu R, John Mathews). Whether acting in the way of visual commentary with figuration and symbolic shapes, too clear or insufficiently evident as metaphors, combining abstract evocation and signs of meaning or exaggerating the direct, the images nevertheless exude authenticity.

Ray Thamburan’s painterly realism-based idiom proves more maturity as well as self-expressive content power. One appreciated the drawing-paintings of Jalajamol P S and their realistic reference. It continues in a consciously naïve and warmly humorous manner with Sunil Laal T R, whereas Jomy K Johnson simplifies port scenes into a strong, almost geometric sketchiness combined with tactile stains and markings.

Designing

Even though the paintings of Somnath C Banerjee (CKP, March 12 to 19) refer to current civilisation compared with traditional spirituality, they look like stylised designs where abstraction loosely mixes with mannered figures. The attempt to make them contemporary by shaping or superimposing on them long, painted pencils and such ends in mere loudness.