Assertion at the base

In Search of Human Roots, the new exhibition by Prabhu Harsoor (CKP, July 24 to 30), is an ambitious and involved development in the work of this mid-generation painter and art teacher from Tumkur. More importantly, it is a rare statement on the shaping of the Dalit self-image, its artistic expression being long-overdue if considered against the immensity of the social condition as well as against the political activism at the base.

Harsoor should be appreciated for shunning the perspective of the victim. Instead, he passionately asserts the strength, endurance and loving protectiveness of his people, their energy acquiring rudimentary and visionary or divine qualities when engaged in worship and ritual music. Further, he admits common weaknesses - doubt, passivity, self-indulgence and propensity to violence.   

There is much intensity in the way he emphasises the black of the skin and piercing white of the large eyes capable of loftiness and hate. The woman deserves his full respect as the sustaining force. As much as one admires Harsoor's stand, one cannot fully agree with his aesthetic choices. His canvases do make an impact by their sheer size and the centrality of the human figure, the latter gaining from an element of plastic realism underneath the highly stylised form. It is the flat, design-relying structure that dilutes the whole. 

The artist seems to be hesitating between a not yet achieved contemporariness of the idiom and the still dominant modernist adherence to folklore-derived mannerisms married to abstract and abstracted patterns.

Simultaneously, the need for a loaded evocation makes him oscillate between a sketchily essentialist head paradigm and its meaty version that comes close to expressionistic but falls into the stylised. Whereas some beauty arises from the softer dynamism of abstracted background motifs, like in the best painting Jeevanaada, the tendency to prettify things spoils it, which is evident in the peaceful images.

Harsoor should probably focus on the self-expressiveness of the image taken more directly from immediate experience, which is present in the just mentioned work, rather than thread verbally formulated juxtapositions and symbolisms which do not always explain themselves visually and emotively on their own.

Sacral spaces

Made in Germany Architecture “ Religion at the Max Mueller Bhavan (July 20 to 29) was an absorbing presentation of a select number of contemporary sacral buildings in Germany.

The small models, compact without detail and colour, were particularly effective in evoking the sculptural qualities of these churches and allied structures where their essential character of sublime gravity could be intuited.  The models were accompanied by photographs and explanations that helped the viewer imagine the actual look and roles of the buildings.

Including some only interesting and some very accomplished architecture, the exhibition evoked the present-day spirit and sensitivities behind it. Most of the designs shunned the historically familiar literalness of the message and ornate finish.

Rather, the prevailing reductionism of form aimed at establishing certain moods and situations that are traditionally expected from sacred places but that would create them towards simple but loftily basic effects valuable for the individual worshipper as well as the democratic congregation, not only the hierarchy.

Thus, the uncluttered expanses and heights simultaneously generate a sense of calm, meditative intimacy and monumental grandeur.

Artificial light is used in consonance with natural illumination to further the same with warmth and sublime sensations. At times, the function of stained glass windows is enhanced by letting in light through vast, wall-like panes devoid of any images. The otherworldly address and the feel of separation from the busy mundane plane combine with openness to the urban and landscape environs.

Three ways

The three youngish artists from Kerala who exhibited together in "3dimensions" (CKP, July 10 to 15), are aiming at diverse complexities of reference and expressions of rooting and must be sincere without, however, achieving profundity. Suresh K. Nair addresses the human and natural condition in his canvases with the image of the Buddha and vine motifs from old murals.

Well painted, the compositions nevertheless remain on the stylised surface of things. Saju Mannathoor's acrylics evoke a somewhat strange immersion of rustic people in organic lushness which happens again with a dose of essentialist mannerism and half-realised naivety of the ethos. Better are his desolate, eerie purple trees with shadows.

Ashok Kumar's small lithographs mean to evoke atmospheric and clashing moods of human sensitivity and relationships, but they dilute over loose imagery collages and the slightly vague figuration that oscillates between the expressive and the generally nice.

Vibrant textures

A.M. Bekwad, a young painter from Belgaum exhibited his water colours on paper and acrylics on canvas at the CKP (July 23 to 29). Divided into softly luminous day images and dark, opaque ones of the night, they show the two moods of the city observed from afar as sheltering in the centre of an expansive, mildly rising landscape.

The compositions strive to find a balance between conventional, realistic rendering and the tight staccato of the nearly geometric architectural shapes which is abstracted and textured. 

The result speaks of commendable skills but weakens in the overall pleasantness. The black and white graphic qualities of his previous cycle had more strength gained from its restraint.