An idiom of his own

A landmark retrospective in Delhi celebrates the life and works of eminent artist, poet and art critic Gulam Mohammed Sheikh. With a display of more than 190 artworks, this is one of the most extensive showcases of Sheikh’s creative oeuvre of six decades and more. Bringing together his gouaches, oil paintings, pen and ink drawings, graphic prints, digital collages, accordion books, poems, photographs, ceramic sculptural objects and large-scale structures and installations such as the Kaavad, the exhibition traces his artistic evolution from early explorations to monumental works.

After his Masters from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda, around the early days of 1960, Sheikh worked incessantly towards finding an idiom and theme he could call his own. One of the images that emerged through that struggle was that of a horse, partly inspired by the Husain’s horses. Sheikh’s horses were, however, diametrically opposite to Husain’s powerful and timeless beasts. “My horse was initially an animal tethered to a tonga. The horse later kicked off the tonga and wandered around as a wild animal, and it appeared in a series of oils and gouaches in 1961-62. Occasionally, there were also landscapes or anguished human figures both in pen and ink drawings and oils with heavy impasto,” recalled Sheikh.

Although his recent works deal with diverse themes, two paintings are larger and somewhat crucial. ‘Francis and Kabir’ is set in a desolate landscape on a world map with refugees, migrants and victims caught in warfare in the traumatic world that we live in today. “Two life-size images of St Francis quoted from a mural of Giotto and an image of Kabir, equally life-size, quoted from the mural of Benode Behari Mukherjee in Santiniketan, stand as healers the world is in dire need of,” he explained. The second, ‘Kaarawaan’, is portrayed on the right flank of a ship in turbulent waters, carrying great artists in their self-portraits drawn from the world of art, balanced on the opposite flank with a luxuriant jungle. Further, ‘Speaking Tree’ appears in the middle with images of writers, some of whom include M M Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh, who died holding the torch of freedom of expression.

Many of Sheikh’s works — such as ‘Speechless City’, which was painted during the Emergency in 1975-77 and ‘City for Sale’, which deals with communalism — explore themes of identity, folklore and socio-political issues. In a similar vein, ‘Road Two’ shows a terrified girl, thrice repeated, running away from the spectre of an atomic explosion in Vietnam. “Politics is a part of life which cannot be excluded from creative expression,” he said.

For years, Sheikh has been inspired by Kabir, whose poetry has remained with him ever since his student days. He began to include his image around the 1990s, a period marked by a series of communal riots and widespread violence. “I found Kabir’s renderings by Kumar Gandharva most inspiring, and I thought of painting Kabir’s sakhis and dohas, which are relevant to our times. This, I thought, would initiate some soul-searching and contemplation,” he said.

Sheikh has also drawn inspiration from Persian, Mughal and Pahari miniatures, bhakti and Sufi poetry and magical realism, as well as European Renaissance art. His interest in the Indian traditions of painting was aroused when he taught art history at the Faculty of Fine Arts in the 1960s and 1970s. “It increased manifold over time as I continued to discover many aspects relevant to my journey as a painter,” he added.

The exhibition also incorporates archival material, including Sheikh’s poetry, pedagogical writings, letters and early publications, such as the magazines he collaborated on with Bhupen Khakhar, as well as his sketchbooks and notebooks filled with notations and preliminary sketches. “There is so much hidden in human memory, which serves as a storehouse to rummage its limitless archives. The world is too large to encompass in a single life, and the world of art is enormous to draw upon sources for future works of art,” concluded Sheikh when asked what he is working on next.

Of Worlds Within Worlds: Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, A Retrospective is on view at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, till June 30.