It’s been a long silence. Definitely
haven’t felt the need of words. Or rather the silence helped me realise the
non-stop chatter of the mind…..and boy does it chatter. “Words”, are they the
respite from this marathon mind chatter? Yes, have been thinking a lot lately about
how words complicate more than they resolve. I think I like silence better.
Music, yes! Apart from that, silence.
The current body of work has
sprung from the verbal silence and constant mind chatter. I observe a lot more
in this mode. Mostly myself, to the stimuli around me. I worked with a lot of
images shot lately. These images on their own did not become a work of
expression, but somehow shooting them exclusively and then bringing them
together in a single canvas, they actually starting narrating a story. The
story of the eternal query “who am I”, where do I feature in all this. Universal
question and oft asked you may say. However the handling is personal. I am
questioning in this body of work my own identity, my own crisis, my own stand.
Stand in what you ask. The basic stand in who am I? What is my racial identity?
What is my national identity? What is my standpoint if at all there is any? Why
is there a need to have a standpoint? Why are we victims of hierarchy? Am I religious or am I spiritual?
As an artist I react to the
circumstances I am dwelling in, the socio-political environment as a global
citizen. However the greater question is, should we not react as “human”
instead of an identity given to us if not at birth, then at a later stage.
These questions difficult to answer, yet I believe that the creative mind is
more responsible for being the voice of the time they are living in. The onus
is on us to bring the focus on what should be asked and what should be reacted
against.
Artists who show in every art
fair, start introspecting about where they are headed with their art and what
happens after the next fair, need to start looking into their own thought
process. As creative minds we need to take that long and hard look in the
mirror ourselves, before we start seeing the shadows of others in it. I know I’m
looking and I’m not liking everything I am see but it’s getting more and more
entertaining. It’s like this Technicolor movie, that’s just getting to that
suspense scene. So go grab your popcorn will meet you again with more juicy
scenes after the India Art Festival. ;)
