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Retrieving Childhood Souvenirs

Dr.Veena Shekar goes through the works and life of the Bangalore based artist G.E.Gurusiddappa and says that the artist’s mainstay is his vast resource of memories. Referring back to the childhood innocence, Gurusiddappa negotiates with the contemporary life, says Veena Shekar.

One of the greatest things about being "human" is that we have memories that are reasonably persistent throughout most of our life-spans. Our memories provide continuity between our past experiences and the current moment. We can never get too far away from our memories because everything we now experience is focused by lenses either scratched or polished by previous experiences. How we "see" things is unique because the sum total of our experiences is unique. It is a fundamental characteristic of being human.

For several thousand years people have believed that remembering retrieves information stored somewhere in the mind. The metaphors of memory have always been metaphors of storage: We preserve images on wax; we carve them in stone; we write memories as with a pencil on paper or if we are artists we file memories away in the form of art works.
In the recent works of the young Bangalore based artist Gurusiddappa G.E., he attests to have a photographic memory; he retains facts so firmly they seem held in a steel grip. Each of his images proposes a memory warehouse where the past lies preserved like childhood souvenirs in an attic. Thus whipping his mind he tells us stories of his growing up years, his understanding of life, his struggles as an artist and his convictions of being a father.

The main body of works traces sketchily a trajectory that is common to every man. Yet they instantly engage the viewer nudging at him to recognize the exceptional in the ordinary. Guru’s huge acrylics on canvas gleam luminously to the focus lights but what catches the eye first is the extraordinary skill with which he goes about painting each and every detail bringing out a most realistic representation.

However the works cannot be categorized as purely representational.  Guru frequently uses allegory to define his thoughts and memories and tries to connect the past with the present, the real with the imaginative and the true with the surreal. Thus the creative journey seems to unfold for this artist.
Most of Guru’s works are autobiographical, drawing inspiration from his journey since childhood, at school in the village, college in the city and his life as a married man and a father.  His flight as an artist seems to have taken off much as every aspiring artist only that he came from a village and had to struggle to understand and cope with the tinges of city life. What life taught him for sustenance made him stronger and with new conviction he forged ahead with a challenge. To buy some paint and paper he even stuck posters in the night and made sign boards. The journey and the struggle, the lesson of life he had learnt naturally turned out to be the subjects of his art. He believed in sharing the emotions and feelings he had experienced with a sense of pride. What brought immense solace to his often distraught condition was rerouting his time towards Kannada theatre and literature. The poetry of A.K. Ramanujam and Nissar Ahmed infused a new spirit of abandon in him that also helped in his visual imagery.

Therefore showcased was a show “The first rain after a long summer” that realized after a gap of two years in early November this year at Gallery Sumukha, Bangalore and in December at Sakshi, Mumbai. The works are similar to the previous one in 2005 but only more mature and more connected to oneself and the universe.

Guru mnemonically traverses many incidents and digs out those he was completely in tune with. During the creative process of recall, sketchy memories of events are filled in with imagined details such as his delight at cloud seeding or gobar gas or yoga practice. He relies on two elements for his woks.  One is his mnemonics and the second is his observation of the children at the orphanage where he worked.  Hence at times we can feel his presence in the canvas and still in some he is merely an observer standing away and making a statement. He also obviates his forms from earthly surroundings and places them in suspension, except for a starry sky, they are either flying or ambiguously there.  He also uses monochromatic modeling giving a sculptural character to the forms.  The smoothened effect brings about an ethereal quality to the forms that seem dreamlike. Guru’s themes are certainly worth a thought.  Drawing a parallel to his own responsibilities as a married man he compares himself to a male bird in ‘A painting for Lata‘(done in 2005). The male bird’s duty is to build a nest for the female; one she must approve of so as to lay eggs in it.  Similarly in ‘We too’ Guru pointed to thebalancing act of a family man. The difficult task was to balance his life as an artist, his family and his aspirations to be a father and more so convincing himself and his wife that he can do it.

Illustrating the synergetic relationship between man and environment Gurusiddappa combines plant, animal and human in a compact dramatic composition. Vines come sprawling out and blossom as couple unite, be it man or animal. In Chand ki raat and After Valentine’s Day there is a celebration, joy and a burgeoning of creativity.  In ‘First rain after a long summer’ and ‘Can I touch’ there is rawness in the dogs copulating that seem suddenly malapropos to the entire series and induce uneasiness. Nevertheless it reminds us of the childish chagrin that we had often experienced when we grappled with matters pertaining to sex in our own childhood.

In “One of my young blind friends asked me if the rains come from the clouds why don’t we grow plants on it” and “One of my young friends asked me is there water inside the camel‘s hump”, we can detect Guru’s appreciation of the  young innocence  he came across when he worked with the orphans. ”I have tried to interpret the world of children whom I encountered as a teacher, their innocence, dreams, imagination, playfulness, curiosities and moods that mark the traits of  childhood.’ explains the artist. 

The works also realized as ‘Pleasures of paradise’ effectively articulate the gullible virtues of children in a simple and straightforward manner with absolutely no pretensions while he is unnecessarily rhetoric in some compositions such as ‘My young friend reached the moon ‘or Take me to the moon’.   Again the black and white monochrome juxtaposed with coloured elements slightly imbalances the clarity of the real and the imagined. But Guru strongly stresses on the need for the monochrome used for better impact.

In this fashion juggles Gurusiddappa with his creative urges.  Weaning and waxing his mind, his memories and observations he presents an interesting collection here and surely our everlasting thirst yearns to see more and more of these in future.