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Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner
KP Reji’s first solo show with the Guild Gallery is ready in Mumbai. During this occasion JohnyML looks at Reji’s works and comes out with a feeling that this artist forwards a strong critique on ideological dogmas.
 I remember stories, read, heard and overheard, especially when I sit at my desk to key in words that would ultimately make it a readable matter. While speaking to the Baroda based artist, Reji KP, who is ready with his major solo show at the Guild Gallery in Mumbai, a story came to my mind; a story by the late author O.V.Vijayan. In one his stories he asks how do the Marxists implement their revolutionary programs and how do they right the wrongs
(should I say ‘right the left’?) if the party line taken is proved fatally wrong? Vijayan, then gives the answer. The party goes ahead with a slogan ‘Moru Tharumo?’ (Will you give us curd?) And if the line is proved wrong, they will come back by shouting the same slogan; Moru Tharumo? Read like this: MO-RU-THA-RU-MO. Whether it is read from right to left or left to right, it reads the same. Moral: Party line does not change. Reji’s works laughs at such ideological die-hardness and evokes the irony of revolutionary follies.
Again, I cannot resist recounting one more story. Noted Malayalam writer, late VKN (Vadakke Koottala Narayanan Kutty Nair), in one of his capsule like stories wrote: ‘What do you see there? Isn’t it the Sickle and Hammer symbol of the Marxist party? Oh…from a distance it looks like ‘OM’.’ VKN laughs at the irony of the red turning into saffron and at revolution turning into totalitarianism. One could not help but bracketing the images of a sickle and hammer hanging at the workshop of a wayside blacksmith, a scene depicted in one of the paintings of Reji. “Cultural conditioning makes us to connect sickle and hammer with the Marxist party symbol. It has become a highly coded and loaded symbol,” observes Reji. Viewer cannot be held responsible for arriving at such conclusions as the scene is a depiction of the working class, the proletariat. “While painting I was aware of this outcome. However, I feel that detaching the sickle from hammer or vice versa I have given some clues of demystification.”
The labour and struggle of the proletariat being the anchor of pragmatic Marxian ideology, any attempt to demystify its symbolism would bring forth some kind of antagonism from the hardcore Marxists. Reji in this work thwarts the conventional equating of labour with pain and struggle, which is manifested in the detached sickle and hammer. Dismemberment of the ideological fabric postulates boon and doom at the same time. However, Reji does not take a partisan stance. “I think I am inspired by Bhupen Khakkar in this matter. I keep myself as an observer than being a participant. By observing the events unfold in front of me, I can make my own choices of depiction,” says Reji.
Reji’s characters are always on motion. They walk, run and do this thing or that thing. “When I came to Baroda in 1994, the first thing I noticed was the people moving around. Apart from the vehicles, people were attached to so many other mobile things that made them also mobile. I think this aspect of movement has come quite effectively in my painting ‘Taste/Salt Seller’,” Reji explains. Interestingly, all these moving people are from the subaltern population; the migrants, fortune seekers and gypsies.
Comprehending these works would become easier if someone reads the works of Reji through the prism of the working class ideology. When autobiographical romanticism becomes the touchstone to test the quality of works, there could be innumerable narratives. However, Reji rejects such propositions. He says: “Migration and the movement of populations were my concerns in the initial years. A few years back I had done a painting titled ‘Travelers from a Devastated Land’. My intention was to portray hope rather than despair of a moving population. Up to an extent I too looked at things from a migrant’s point of view. Soon I changed my position from being a migrant and started looking at things immediately around me and treated them as painterly subjects.”
Any work of literature or art writes a locale and a nation within its conceptual frame work. I would say that Reji writes a locale, there by writing the ‘other side’ of a nation. He does not pretend that his works represent the phenomenon called the ‘glocal’. “Baroda has taught me to think locally. When I look at a water tank through the windows of my studio, I do not think about the international water politics. I see the water tank as an image that encodes the locality. It simultaneously registers my existence within and in relationship with the locale. My aim is not to tell a story, instead, I attempt to create a framework so that many stories could take place,” observes Reji.
Subdued colours applied flatly on to the canvases provide Reji’s works with a mood of rumination. “When I came to Baroda as an art student in mid 90’s, my way of working was very different. Like the Trivandrum school of painters I used to mix paints directly on the canvas. In Baroda, I shifted colours on to the palette. This helps me to arrive at accidental colour tones and most of them are subdued in their own ways. I do not think that there is some deliberate attempt to subdue them. I think, I use the colours that the painterly language of mine demands,” Reji tells.
Resistance, which had been a hallmark of the artists hailing from Kerala, has become somewhat redundant as far as Reji’s philosophical thinking is concerned. “Resist what? I think resistance for the sake of resistance is absurd. We are going through a phase where resistance looks a bit comical. Artists have learned to move in certain directions that would help them to express their ideas without yielding to external pressures. Still, I would say that I am moving along with the stream,” Reji smiles. Perhaps, he is led by the maxim that rolling stones do not gather moss.
Reji thinks that size is something that matters in the final execution of ideas. According to him an idea gives birth to size also. “A painting is conceived along with the size of its execution,” he says. An artist, who likes to work more with oil on canvas, however does not step back when it comes to other mediums. “I like to work on paper and other mediums. Recently I did some sculptural works using glass as the medium. You can see them in the solo show.”
What is Reji, after all as a person, one would like to ask. In his own words, “I am not a hundred meter sprinter. May be I am a marathon runner.” True, Reji’s works are rare and they are not seen so regularly in galleries. The metaphor that he uses to express himself sounds apt as he is a loner and faces the loneliness of a long distance runner with grace. He resolves his existential dilemma there in the time taken for finishing a work of art and he enjoys the happiness to the hilt of it. |
