Into The Heart Of A Riddle

Noted art critic Giridhar Khasnis writes on the latest suit of works by the Bangalore based senior artist K.T.Sivaprasad.

K.T.Sivaprasad

…I have a mind to confuse things,
unite them, make them new-born,
mix them up, undress them,
until all light in the world
has the oneness of the ocean,
a generous, vast wholeness,
a cracking, living fragrance.

PABLO NERUDA, 'TOO MANY NAMES'

Aren't there times when you feel you are standing on the edge; upside down?
Like a mummy, embalmed in a blood red cloth; suspended in thin air; handcuffed; entire body tied with ropes?

Below, the grey sky may seem to hide the involuntarily, incessantly fluttering sea wave. After a while, your gaze shifts to a nearby fish market; where two huge specimens, one black, one white, are ready to be sliced on the stony chopping table.

And then, you start wondering. “When and how did the fish die? Is the fish actually dead? Are there some smaller fish in its belly? Is it holding one last tiny breath of life in its lungs; just enough to make a dying statement; to reveal a well-hidden secret? Is its slimy, shiny skin deliberately trying to raise a monstrous stink? Aren't its pouted lips trying to break into a mischievous, mocking smile? Aren't its lidless eyes winking at the fisherman's coy mistress…?”

And then, you suddenly realize. That you (still dangling upside down), the fish (one black and one white), the grey sky, the hidden sea shore, and a leather puppet and a just opened-up pressure cooker (which have materialized suddenly from nowhere) - are all on the cover of TIME magazine!

Now that you are no more than a mere cutout, you decide to cross the barriers of human thought and emotion. And start wondering, can a dead fish really breathe, babble and grin? The fisherman has bathed himself, his mistress and the fish in river waters, but who the hell is going to cleanse the water in the river? Someone will feed on the fish that big, fleshy, slimy, stinking black and white fish; but who'll feed the small fish already in the belly of the dead (or dying) big fish? What is the fish's crime; who gave it the punishment?

If all these seem like mesmerizing vignettes on a dodgy unmarked landscape, that is the magic of Shiva's image: clasping the edge of the mysterious; managing implausible connection between the simplest and the staggering; or singing Yeh bhai, zara dekhke chalo, aage bhi nahi peeche bhi, daaye bhi nahi baaye bhi, ooper bhi nahin neeche bhi …

THE CONSULTING IMAGE
He watched her for a long time and she knew that he was watching her and he knew that she knew he was watching her, and he knew that she knew that he knew; in a kind of regression of images that you get when two mirrors face each other and the images go on and on and on in some kind of infinity.

ROBERT M PIRSIG, 'LILA: AN INQUIRY INTO MORALS'

Like a riddle, K T Shiva Prasad's image opens before us a set of seemingly disparate signs, symbols and provocations and strings them together by an incredible logic. Exposing intricate layers and elements of human struggle and suffering, it ignites our thoughts and senses by bringing forth a critical scrutiny of our personal and collective experiences, emotions and responses. Above all, without resorting to bogus manipulations and ludicrous gimmicks, it raises questions about the validity of our thoughts, values and belief systems all, in purely visual terms.

Shiva's intriguing image structure and adventurous arrangement never lose the focus of a fundamental centrality; the challenge and excitement occurs by breaking the barriers of accepted and seemingly valid notions; in developing a new vision to see and be seen; in raising valid questions on our visual vocabulary: What is real and what is imagined? What is moral, what is deceitful in our act of seeing? What is right, what is flawed? Why do we show something, but mean something else? What does the image reveal?

More importantly what does it hide? The visual and cerebral construct at once reflects such truly amazing paradoxes of hide and seek, of creation and deconstruction, of fulfillment and nothingness.

When one paints the way Shiva Prasad does, there is a danger of tangling by two extreme possibilities. An urge to dwell deep inside a thought, and obsessively imaging it on canvas. Or, to distance oneself completely, for the sake of the so-called 'objective' assessment. Shiva does neither. Instead, like an ardent student of Zen, he discovers the mysterious 'middle' path in a somewhat crazy yet untrodden alley. He does not hesitate to stand on the edge, and miraculously balance his acts and art between fact and fiction, illusion and actuality, isolation and illumination.

The zooming pathways of a plundering warplane is about to pierce the checkered red-n-yellow game board of warring leather puppets on which a smiling 'Enlightened One' lies beheaded (LIFE GOES ON); the stillness and silence of a young beautiful 'toda' woman is captured with burnt sienna and multiple photorealist similes ('TIME AND SPACE' IS A MENTAL CONSTRUCT); a miniature nawab leads his white horse (both seen upside down) even as books, vases, penholder and other oddments lie on a table and a wooden bull gapes mischievously at the fiercely lovemaking couple on a seafront (REMEMBRANCE OF JOURNEY - II); a couple of warring leather puppets male with an exceptionally long and erect dick and the female with an open private part is set against a grossly painted hoarding of a tyre company (SEARCH); torn leftovers of explicit movie posters seem to upset SAVITHRAMMA'S WORLD; the tall, elegant religious preacher in long robes holds a cross close to his chest and is in unusual company (SAINT, BATMAN AND PUPPET); violent film posters and strangely construed deities stand mesmerized on plaster-peeling walls to the bewilderment of a new entrant (ENTER SUPERMAN).

And then there is the enthralling theme picture BY THE SEA - II; in which a 'tigerman' looks at his dusky mate; an extraordinary 'land and mind' scape separates them; an expansive sky sports an inverted vision - of hanging wooden deities and cloud-mountain; and a couple of miniature helicopters whirr around menacingly...

In all these images, Shiva mediates through labyrinths of distraught lives and dark times; unfolds to us our tight spots and thorny predicaments; reminds us of our forgotten or misplaced selves, our negative and positive inventory which we seldom look at squarely.

Through a didactic interplay of disparate elements, the image becomes a compelling reflection of our deeply felt anxiety, disquiet and hollowness. Its unique narrative rooted as it is in the native soil is enlivened by a global perspective. Far from being a melancholic echo, it becomes an engaging endorsement of meaningful observance and meditative silence.

All these make K T Shiva Prasad one of most significant artists of our times.