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Viewing Whispering Palettes

Baroda based young art critic Aparna Roy goes through the works by twenty contemporary artists inspired by the poems of their choice, curated by Himanshu Joshi at the ABS Red Earth Gallery, Baroda and comes out with the following observations.

To whoever is not listening to the sea
this Friday morning ,to whoever is cooped up
in house or office ,factory or woman
or the street or mine or harsh prison cell:
to him I come ,and ,without speaking or looking,
I arrive and open the door of his prison ,
and a vibration starts up ,vague and insistent,
a great fragment of thunder sets in motion.
 --From “Poet’s Obligation” by Pablo Neruda

This is what the poet obliges to do .Something stirs within the soul like a fever as Neruda points out .The whispering palettes catch that moment when words become images. How does one receive poetry as medium of protest, as a medium of love and devotion or to express solitariness amidst the busy world? The world of violence that envelops our world ushered in poetries chosen by Sajal Sarkar,B.V Suresh, Hindol Brahmabhatt and Indrapramit Roy and Jyoti Bhatt. Sites may change from Bengal, Gujarat to Bangladesh to Pakistan. But the bruises hurt the same. Perennial themes of love and devotion flow from the Sufi poems or unknown poets known to the painter like Bunny, poems by the artists themselves or important poets writing in regional languages.

The curator’s quest of the similarity between the two genres that is painting and poetry is reflected in most of the paintings. Gulammohammed  Seikh’s painting brings about the political and the personal on a same plane and uses image and text on the same pictorial space almost trying to erase the difference between a text and an image. Jyoti Bhatt’s painting based on Tagore’s song Ekla Cholo speaks about how a peacemaker travels all alone in his endeavour. Jeram Patel’s abstraction suits the poetic structure. Sudip Dutta’s watercolour reflects well on Bahadur Shah Zafar’s poem on  separation, longing for his land and solitariness. So does Alok Bal’s work which speaks about hope, miracle and spirituality which exists even in gloom and despair.
Manisha Doshi works on the devotional poetry and expresses the unison of the supreme with the solitary soul through delicate colours. Vasudevan Akkitham tries to reveal through the echo like repetition of imagery  the depth and different dimension of love. B.VSuresh’s colours has a poetic subtlety and expresses the violence which breaks everything. So does Sajal Sarkar’s work through his skillful handling of watercolor and the calm faces set against the fragments. Santana Gohain renders no figures but reflects on the haiku like poetry of Nilamani Phukan through textures and scripts set against the black expanse. Atul Dodiya uses calligraphy which is itself poetic and lyrical in nature to give a form to the poetry. Hindol’s –“A page from my diary” offers a visual treat consisting of a figure on the top free from gravity playing music as if in celebration and a group of figure seen from a top view.
Indrapramit Roy’s painting shows what happens when doom sets in creating a contrast with soft toys and the explosive cloud like rendering. As if the world is forcefully emptied of life and innocence. Ajay Sharma’s “Drinking alone under the moon” reveals the layers of poetry in the usage of shadow imprints juxtaposed like palimpsests. Rajib Chowdhury ‘s  painting  shows a surrender to the invitation of the vast landscape, he faces the viewers waiting, he imagines to invite on behalf of the poet.