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Shaping the Enshrined Objects

Veteran sculptor Nagji Bhai Patel was in Delhi recently for his major solo show titled ‘The Enshrined Objects’ at the Gallery Espace. In conversation with JohnyML, Nagji Bhai Patel talks about his life and art. Excerpts from the interview:

Nagji Bhai Patel

Nagji Bhai Patel, the Baroda based veteran sculptor has always been in love with stones. Immediately after his student days at the Fine Arts Faculty, MS University, Baroda, Nagji Patel visited most of the stone quarries in India and studied the properties of various stones. Ever since he has been working with stones and his monumental public sculptures made in stones have brought him critical accolades from all over the world. As an artist he believes in the process rather than the final product. Nagji Bhai Patel would like to call himself an artist rooted in earth. Both in his sculptures and drawings, Nagji Patel explore the human beings’ relationship with earth. His solo exhibition in Delhi in 1996 at the LTG Art Gallery, presented a series of small stone sculptures with agricultural tools as the dominant imagery. As an art advisor and art teacher too Nagji Patel has made his presence felt.

JohnyML: You are exhibiting in Delhi after a long gap. What do you feel now?

Nagji Bhai Patel: I always feel good about Delhi. My last solo in Delhi was in 1996 and after that I have been involved in several public projects. Of course, I have been pursuing my studio practice also during these years. Exhibition is not my aim. I have always felt that as an artist, working is more important than exhibiting them. Somehow the gallery situation makes me feel slightly uncomfortable. I love to work on public sculptures and I believe that India needs more and more public sculptures. It is one of the major ways to make people participate in/with a work of art in their social space. All these years I have been working outside, literally under a tree. I am attached to earth and I want my works to be seen in a natural setting. My intention while doing art symposiums at the Indian Petro Chemical Limited (IPCL), Baroda, where I have been an art advisor for many years, was to bring art to the public and generate awareness. ‘The Enshrined Objects’ solo in Delhi gives me a lot of happiness as I am doing a solo after a long time.

JML: Looking back, what do you feel about your art education in Baroda?

NBP: Baroda was different in late fifties and early sixties during which I was a student there. There was no art market then. I was always working in the college studio and the late sculptor Sankho Chowdhury was our teacher. I assisted him in several of his large scale works. Unlike these days, there were only a few students in each department. So there was always a close-knit relationship amongst the teachers and students. Raghav Kaneria, Krishna Charpar, Gulam Mohammed Sheikh and Bhupen Khakkar were there as fellow students. There were several other interesting friends and as you know, many of them did not survive as artists. In 1964 I finished my post graduation and I got a scholarship to visit the stone quarries in Karnataka, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu. I spent almost one year in these quarries and studied the properties of stones and stone carving.

JML: You are in love with stone. Could you please tell more about this love affair?

NBP: I was born in a village named Juni Jithardi, around thirty kilometers away from Baroda. I spent my childhood in agricultural fields and amongst various animals. As a child, I always felt like doing something with objects, which could be touched and felt. Making objects was a primary occupation for me then. I started liking stones at a very early age and now I feel that stones and myself share the same temperament. Stone does not speak too much, it should be touched and felt. Similarly, I also do not talk too much. My works speak for themselves. They are touched and felt by people. It is this tactile quality that made me fall in love with stones.

JML: Working in stone and living the life of an artist when there was no art market; it must have been pretty difficult for you then. How did you manage?

NBP: After my visit to the quarries, my idea was to come back and settle in Baroda. I wanted to be in Baroda. So I started teaching in many schools as a part time art teacher. I enjoyed being with small kids; making stories for them and learning a lot from them. I got invitations to join Benaras Hindu University and Jamia Millia Islamia. Somehow I was not ambitious and I did not want to become a professor. I liked the atmosphere in Baroda and the freedom it gave me. Then I got an invitation from the IPCL to join as an art advisor to the company. I joined IPCL mainly because the management gave me full freedom to do whatever I wanted to do. It was this company’s policy to promote art and culture. I found the company premises did not have any aesthetic objects to create an ambience for the staff and the visitors. So I mooted the idea of starting a series of art symposiums. Most of the artists, Akbar Padamsee, Gieve Patel, Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, Prabhakar Kolte, Manu Parekh, Madhvi Parekh, Krishen Khanna to name a few, came a worked in the IPCL campus. It changed the whole ambience of the company. I feel that all the corporate organizations have the responsibility to promote art and culture.

JML: Your drawings have a lot of playful elements like those of school kids. Do you think the school teaching days have influenced your drawing style?

NBP: I have never felt it is a bad idea to be a school teacher. On the contrary the school teaching experience has contributed to my art a lot. I was never a teacher to the small kids. I was more like a friend and playmate. Children’s drawings are inspirational. My drawings also take this inspirational route. I see things around me, transform them into different modes. I mostly use pen on paper and the strokes are more like chisel strokes than brush strokes. I enjoy doing drawings like a child.

JML: When did recognition come to you?

NBP: I was not after recognition when I passed out from college. But when I was a student in 1960, I sent one of my works to the National Lalit Kala Akademy and in that year I received the National Award. It was quite a surprise for me as Ramkinker Baij and M.F.Husain were in the jury. I was too young and nobody knew me. That was a recognition, of course.

JML: When did you do your first exhibition?

NBP: As I said, after my quarry trip, I came back to Baroda in 1965 and I had around twenty small stone sculptures with me. So I took them to Mumbai and did a show there. Many people liked my works. Even famous people like Mohan Samanta collected my works. Then I participated in several Lalit Kala Akademy shows as that was the only avenue opened for artists in those days.

JML: When did you start your large scale commission projects?

NBP: In 1978 I went to Yugoslavia for an international sculpture symposium and it was in a marble quarry site. My first large scale public sculpture was done there. Then in 1990, ‘Banyan Tree’ in Baroda was done. This public sculpture brought me a lot of accolades and the biggest praise I got was from the common people of Baroda. Now this sculpture has become the landmark of Baroda city. Then I did another sculpture in Old Padra Road in Baroda followed by several other commissions by IPCL. Also I have done public sculptures in Bulgaria and Japan.

JML: Could you please talk more about the development of your style?

NBP: I have always been interested in animals and animal forms. My childhood was spent amongst several animals. And while I was in college, we students used to go to the zoo to sketch animals. Animals make you to touch them. My works derive the tactile quality from these animal forms. Tactility is the primary quality of my works and I create my sculptures with the intention that they should be touched and felt by people. During my visits to the historical sites in India (like Badami, Aihole, Pattadakkal and so on), I found the sculptures there with certain areas highly polished and darkened than the other parts. These were the curvaceous breasts, shoulders and knees of the sculptures. These areas are polished as the visitors touched them to feel the curvaceous surfaces. I was inspired by these and in many of my sculptures I have given this feel of touch through selective polishing.

There is always an erotic element in my works. Eroticism is not a descriptive notion in my works. I give emphasis on form rather than the narrative possibilities and therefore the form evokes the sense of eroticism in them. For me tactility is a form of erotic feeling. I look for the inner spirit of its expression. You may see this erotic splendor in the works that I did during the late seventies and early eighties.

JML: There is a greater sense of abstraction in your works.

NBP: Yes, there is a gradual shift from identifiable forms to semi-abstract forms in my early works to the recent ones. Once I used to do a lot of detailing in works. But slowly I started removing these details and concentrating on essential forms. It is a kind of looking for the roots, the origin and genesis. So human form is expressed in its essential torso and even the genders are depicted emblematically.

JML: Of late one can see a lot of tree forms in your works

NBP: This came to me as I was thinking more about the meditative nature of solid forms. Stones have that meditative character. I was looking for the same in other mediums like bronze. I casted a few tree branches in bronze to see this evolution. It came as a part of exploration. And of course, the tree forms are directly connected to my rural past.

JML: A lot of playfulness is seen in your recent sculptures.

NBP: That is very true. It is a part of maturing of the artistic process. It becomes a philosophical process too. I no longer think about the ‘good’ ‘bad’ dichotomy. If something that you do give you an immense amount of satisfaction, it is a good work, even if others find it a bad work. It is all your energy and your satisfaction. The playfulness comes in this way. I look at children doing their works. Their drawings are not done for impressing someone. They get a lot of pleasure in doing it.

The recent drawings have a lot of colors in them. Previously my drawings used to be dark. My drawing process is quite eclectic. I absorb a lot of elements from my surroundings and they come back to my drawings through different permutations and combinations. I like the surprises presented by these mixing up of imageries. The read, heard and experienced stories and myths come back to my drawings as if from nowhere. If you look at my Mexico series or Iraq series you will come to know about it.

JML: Your works bring Brancusi in mind

NBP: Brancusi is my god, I would say. I went to Romania only to see Brancusi’s village. His works have transformed me in several ways. I went to see the Brancusi Museum in his village and when I was in France I went to see his studio which is now converted into a museum. His works are inspired by his life in Romania. He has taken several elements from the local architectures and environment. This aspect of Brancusi’s works has impressed me a lot.

JML: What are your future plans?

NBP: As I said earlier, in 1996 I had exhibited my ‘Agricultural Tools’ sculptures in LTG Gallery, New Delhi. They were small sculptures depicting agricultural tools. I wanted them to be huge works though I did not have the facilities to do so. Now I have developed a farm house kind of space in my village Juni Jithardi, where I am planning to do all these sculptures again in large scale. They will then belong to where they are supposed to be.