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Speaking Through Metaphors
Contemporary issues such as violence, functions of democracy and the paradoxes or dilemma within are the main concerns of the young painter Debraj Goswami. He contemplates on the issues, analyzes them and transforms his thoughts into a visual language. Metaphors become his looking glass. Young critic Aparna Roy catches up with the artist. Excerpts from the interview:
Aparna Roy: Present-day situations intrigue you, how do you draw references from them?
 Debraj Goswami: Literary references or News paper reports inspire me. In my student days I was involved with the Little magazines and used to write for them. I map the larger issues of politics on the writings of Sukumar Roy or Upendra Kishore Roychowdhury which I read in my childhood days. My association with political activities attracted me to the socio-political conditions of our times. Any kind of violence, by force or symbolic comes forth in my work. Moreover how people react to different incidents around us is a continuous inspiration for me. I talk with people, try to understand their reactions and then analyze them. From those emerge the images.
AR: Do you do any lay outs?
DG: While reflecting on a particular idea the process of visualization also starts. Many images are afloat. Then I do preliminary drawings and keep on doing, re-doing .From these repeated efforts a particular painting unfolds itself. Some of the images from these primary drawings are used and some are not.
AR: How do you evolve the metaphors?
DG: Transferring my political awareness or view in pictorial terms is altogether a different thing .It is like paraphrasing your thoughts almost like in poetry; in three lines it can express thirty pages. There are many things to be conveyed but the space is short. So metaphors which provide a conceptual economy become the vehicle of expression.
More over freedom of speech is regulated by censorship and even violence. So the use of metaphors are advantageous. I can speak against saffronisation by showing a saffron paste coming from a tricolor tube or about consumerism by showing an attractively packaged chocolate having a bullet within it.
AR: You also use references from other paintings such as 'Guernica' or ‘The Creation of Adam'. How do you relate to these imageries?
DG: It becomes easy. Those images communicate easily. As an artist those imageries become a deliberate choice to create the desirable meaning .They help to create my own visual language.
AR: Why do you use fragments?
DG: Two different incidents occur often they are not interrelated directly. But sometimes I find them linked. Like Nandigram, Rizwanur or Taslima issue. I think they are concomitant. Hence I put the fragments side by side and see as a viewer and painter. It also provides the viewer an opportunity to relate according to ones own perception, nothing is imposed.
AR: Some symbolism like the thumb and the God’s hand are often seen in your paintings. Can you elaborate about this repetition?
DG: In Bengal showing a thumb means failed, bogus, spoiled. The image of the thinker over the thumb shows the failing ideologies which is recently being seen in Nandigram. Hands show the power of religion, they dictate every sphere of our life in fact religion merges with our way of life and we can’t deny there are 33 crores of Gods and Goddesses in the Hindu pantheon. Even if we don’t believe we cannot deny their presence in our surroundings and their images appear in the artist’s imagination.
Fragment of the hand speaks about the presence and not about any specific god. When a man is targeted by the God’s hands on a knife board it shows how sometimes in the name of God humanity is put into stake. Squirrel stands for a devotee of Ramchandra who came to help Ram while he was building the bridge, we often misinterpret simple devotion and define them in communal terms .These images convey my messages very strongly.
I repeat them because the feeling of incompleteness is there, the exploration of a symbol which is being left incomplete in the former painting seeks another dimension in the next .The symbols generate different meanings with the change of contexts.
AR: Self-Portraits are also seen in your work. In what context do you use them?
DG: Before criticizing others I wanted to criticize myself. So you will see myself in the graduation robe smiling at my own success but crowned with the thorny paper boat .The institution provides us with medals for achievements but fails to give the much needed protection when needed. I ridicule myself as the receiver of such acclaim. I often question my way of protest which is through my pictorial language .These visuals are not weapons but a medium to express an outcry.
AR: Why acrylic became your major medium?
DG: Mainly because of economic reasons acrylic became the major medium. When I joined Fine Arts College I couldn’t afford oil colour . Acrylic as a medium is very easy to handle .Moreover the detailing can be done more minutely, the oil color like effect can be achieved and one can paint over and over repeatedly without any problem.
AR: Did Charles Wallace and working abroad bring any change?
DG: It made me see what I didn’t see before here in our country. The hype disappeared. But definitely I benefited from the things I saw, particularly the paintings which were only visible through the reproductions in Art History books. Rembrandt’s paintings were so engrossing; his painting skills filled me with awe and inspiration. His works made a great impact on me. I went back to create chiaroscuro and evolve dimensional effects in my paintings.
AR: You completed B.F.A in Rabindra Bharati in Kolkata and M.F.A in M.S.U .How do you see the shift?
DG: I was not comfortable with the visual language in Kolkata during that time (90s), it has changed now. Then one had to follow a certain visual language. In Baroda all the tendencies were appreciated. The narrative school of Baroda also helped me a lot.
AR: What are the changes you observe in your recent work and earlier works?
DG: Earlier the space for viewers was not so broader, I used to saturate my paintings with imageries and symbols, now the viewers feel free to explore and interpret. My early concern was to work on the problems of democracy now it is not only restricted to that but the concept of violence and how it seeps in our life also gets mingled with it.
AR: How would you locate your work in the contemporary context and what do you want to convey through them?
DG: I use a lot of local references, like Bengali proverbs and symbolism along with the art historical references and work with this thing in my mind that we don’t have to surrender to any Euro- centric parameters now. Things have changed .We can locate ourselves in the contemporary art world with our sensibilities which may have been inspired by the local references.
My works are the documentation of our times with a critical edge attached to it .I hope the viewers understand it and interpret accordingly.
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