The Intimate Drawings
A large scale solo exhibition of Amitava Das opens at the Gallery Espace, New Delhi on 17th August 2007. The show includes selected works from 1970s to now. Amitava Das speaks to JohnyML about his life and works.
Amitava Das |
“My drawings are complete in themselves. When I leave a drawing I feel a sense of completion. In paintings however, one has to organize things, come back to it again and again,” says Amitava Das. His has been a long journey in the Indian art scene. Amitava’s story of transformation from a school boy who decided to leave drawing classes for Sanskrit lessons to an artist who is devoted entirely to drawings as well as paintings is rich and fabulous. While preparing for a large scale solo exhibition at the Gallery Espace, New Delhi Amitava Das spoke to JohnyML about his art and life. Excerpts from the interview:
JohnyML: Chance occurrences have led many people to become artists. During your school days you did not want to study art instead you opted to learn Sanskrit despite your inclination towards drawing. But eventually you became an artist. Could you please recount those things that made Amitava Das, the artist?
Amitava Das: I was always interested in drawing. I was interested in a kind of automated drawings. But my kind of automation was entirely different from what the surrealists had practiced and propagated. It was when I was just four years old that I chanced upon the experience of drawing. A senior member in the family gifted me with a book by Sukumar Ray, father of Satyajit Ray. Titled ‘Pagla Dashu’, this book dealt with the life of an extremely creative boy who was called mad for his behavior did not conform to the social norms. The book had a few drawings and at that tender age I thought it was all about drawing. So I started running the pencil over those drawings and soon realized a rhythm taking me along. For me, it was a kind of revelation that I could draw. Also my aunt practiced the typical Bengali wash paintings. I got a few lessons by following her working methods.
I spent my childhood in Shimla which had vast tracts of lands and a beautiful and scenic nature. I was immensely inspired by the natural surroundings. However, I had my schooling in Delhi and the drawing teacher in the school followed conventional ways of teaching. I found his teaching style quite rigid and boring. So I decided to study Sanskrit.
When I was in the tenth standard a huge exhibition from France came to Rabindra Bhavan. This exhibition covered works from 15th century to 20th century. It had the works of modern masters like Picasso and Braque. I saw this show several times and even touched the works of Braque and Picasso to feel and share the sense of greatness. Then in late 1960s another exhibition from America came to Rabindra Bhavan. This show presented a totally different sensibility through the works of Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, Robert Rauschenberg and so on. These two shows were eye openers for me. I decided to study art then and there itself.
JML: So after schooling you joined an art college?
AD: That is an interesting story. Art was not a lucrative thing at that time and my father did not want his son to suffer in future. To make me a chartered accountant he put me in Delhi University to study commerce. Within a few months I got bored of the subject and started looking for a change. The college principal was quite lenient towards me and I shifted to a general course with philosophy as a major subject.
I used to play cricket and football well and in the first year itself I got selected to the college football team. It was at the same time I found out the college library. It had a vast collection of Bengali and French literature in English translations. I liked the writers such as Jibananda Das and Budhadeb Bose who tried to deconstruct the Tagore tradition and lead the Bengali literature to a new direction. I resigned from the football team for spending more time in library. Some changes were happening in my world view as I drew more and more close to the world of literature. My father passed away when I was in my first year graduation and I decided to leave the course after that. And in 1965 I enrolled myself as a painting student in Delhi College of Art.
JML: And you rediscovered your interest in drawing….?
AD: Drawing was an obsession for me. I did my regular college works with a systematic quickness and spent most of the time in drawing. I felt very intimate with drawings. It was an unconditional way of expression. One day the college principal asked the final year students to see my sketchbooks though I was in the first year. It was a kind of early recognition for my drawings.
JML: Where did you find your inspiration during the formative years?
AD: I should say that I was lucky enough to have friends like Akbar Padamsee, Tyeb Mehta, Krishen Khanna and Manjit Bawa. Though I was young, they all treated me well. Kali Pundole used to come to see these senior artists. He saw my works and offered me a show. Just before that Mrs.Alkazi had offered me a show. She had one of the pioneering galleries in Delhi, namely Kunika Chemould. As a college student I was very proud to have a show with Mrs.Alkazi. When the show really happened, it put off some of my teachers. They did not turn up for the show. However, master sculptor Dhanraj Bhagat came for the show and wished me best though I was a painting student and not a direct student of his.
JML: Your drawings of 1970s show a kind of minimalist’s concern for space and lines. And it seems that almost for a couple of decades you kept on drawing. Could you please explain this obsession?
AD: As I mentioned earlier, drawing is an intimate process. However, materialistic realities of that time had something to do with my obsession for drawings. Money and space were limited and in this given situation drawing was the only way out.
In my early drawings I employed a special technique of elimination. I created drawings using black and white pens and then I eliminated these lines using minimal colours or pen strokes. So the final drawing is actually an image of an eliminated drawing. Initially I used to draw images from interiors. When I joined Jamia Millia Islamia as a temporary lecturer, I used to travel by the ring road. This daily experience of vast lands and buildings evoked what I had experienced in Shimla as a young boy. Slowly I started bring elements from the nature in my drawings.
JML: 1960s and 70s were the most turbulent times in the world history. India too witnessed this intellectual, cultural and socio-political turbulence. I am curious to know how as a young man you went through this turbulence and tried to find expression of it in your works.
AD: It was really a wonderful time and it was difficult to keep away from the intellectual and cultural ambience of the time. We had a coffee house culture then. For hours and hours we used to sit and discuss socio-political and cultural issues in this adda. Naxalism was one of the major political movements of the time and also the same time witnessed the declaration of Emergency in India.
In Connaught Place, there was a book shop called Galgotia Bookshop and I used to visit this shop quite regularly. I came across a lot of artists’ monographs there. I found a copy of Che Guevara’s book titled ‘We Shall Overcome’. The same time the French journalist Regi Debre published a book on guerrilla warfare. All these inspired the young generation and our fight was not against consumerism or anything of that sort. We were all against the establishment and the establishment was represented by the state.
The Hippie Movement, the Beatles finding Maharshi Mahesh Yogi and Ravi Shankar, Rwitik Ghatak’s films etc had charged up the atmosphere. As an artist my aim was to develop a new sensibility out of this situation. I was not interested to illustrate or narrate the situation. I was looking for a new language that defied the established kind of aesthetics.
JML: Did you have an immediate aesthetic context to rebel against?
AD: Yes. The Progressive Group/s and the Bengal School were strong at two extremes. As politically inclined people, the young generation rejected the Bengal School style and personally speaking, I was more drawn to the Progressive Movement. The young generation faced a very violent situation. It was reflected in the works of the Progressives, the films like ‘Calcutta 70’ and ‘Clockwork Orange’. I remember Krishen Khanna doing some paintings on Che Guevara. I too did some works on the issue of Emergency. However, as I told you earlier, I never narrated things on my pictorial surface. What I tried to express at that time was a rebellion against the political suppression, using a very minimal language.
JML: When did you start painting on canvas?
AD: Keeping away from canvas had materialistic reasons. In 1977 Lalit Kala Akademy started its workshop at Garhi. I could get a studio space there with Manjit Bawa. Rest of the artists were either working in the graphic studios or in the sculpture studios. We were the two painters who got admission in the Garhi studios for the first time. The space gave me the confidence to work on canvas.
JML: You are one the Indian artists who had traveled a lot in foreign countries especially during a time the Indian artists could not even imagine frequent visits to the foreign shores. Have these journeys helped you developing your sensibility?
AD: Definitely the journeys have helped me to develop myself. It was my job as an exhibition designer and graphic artist at the India Trade Promotion Council where I had joined in 1977 took me to different countries. Initially I visited Russia, Vietnam, Cameroon and many other small countries. Then there were several European trips. In these trips I found out many new materials and mediums. I made several collage works out of these materials.
JML: Somewhere it is said that you are a great collector of curio materials.
AD: As an artist I have been always I attracted to different materials. I collected tickets, labels, packaging materials and so on for their sheer graphic quality. Also I collect different kinds of writing and drawing materials. I use these curios in my drawings and it becomes a kind of collage. I never use these materials in my paintings. Drawing has an intimate nature there even you can experiment with tea stains. Once I came across the Fuji colours, which were used to paint the black and white photographs. These colours opened up a lot of surprise for me and I did a lot of watercolour drawings using them.
JML: Could you please explain your art in your own terms?
AD: My art is about experiences, both the immediate and the remembered. They come in layers as in the classical music. I was introduced to the Western and Indian classical music at a very early age and I found it has a lot to do with my art. Each tonal variation has its own relevance in music and similarly each layer has a special sense of existence in my works.
These days my obsession with drawing has been reduced slightly. I can now resist the urge for drawing. I don’t want to become a slave of victim of my style or any material. When I find difficulty in continuing with certain style I stop it there and experiment with different mediums. Or even I keep away from doing works at all. Many renowned artists have practiced this kind of abstinence. I am comfortable with both painting and drawing. Drawing is an intimate process and in painting you have to organize yourself. I feel my drawings are ‘completed’ works. When I finish a drawing, however it looks unfinished to a viewer I feel it is a finished and completed work.
JML: Your wife and noted artist Mona Rai also uses a lot of materials in her works. Some kind of elemental sharing is there in both of your works. Is it because you share a conjugal relationship?
AD: Though I use different materials in my works, in its essence I am a purist. Mona uses a lot of unconventional materials in her works and for her the material itself is a challenging medium. I make a dot with a pen whereas Mona’s dot could be a perforation of the surface with some material. She has an entirely different outlook on the aesthetics. We do not share a studio nor do we discuss aesthetic matters too much. I solve most of my aesthetic problems within myself.
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