Laxman Shrestha - An (Un)Pause

Laxman Shrestha is a name even the most casual observers of the Indian art world encounter repeatedly, and know well. My first brush with the artist was at the once venerable Jehangir Art Gallery. I was not yet ten years old, and I was surveying his abstracts distractedly, unable to make much sense of them. He came up to me, asked me what I thought of them, and I said I liked the colours - an answer that sounded silly even to my pre-teen self. 

It's been some time since then, and I've had the pleasure of renewing my acquaitance with the artist's work at the Jehangir Nicholson Gallery's two part retrospective of his career. Curated by Ranjit Hoskote, the first part of the exhibition traces Shrestha's work from the 1960s to the late 1980s, and explores his evolution and concerns while also providing the context of his peers' expressions of abstraction. It's a compact, concise show that has depth, with paintings interpreted through excellent curatorial notes and a particularly informative interview with the artist. 

I'd like to think, though, that even in their absence, I'd find it within myself to appreciate Shrestha's work beyond the colours. The exhibition starts out with tight wedges of colour on small canvases - paintings that are crammed but composed, dense with textural detail. By the 1970s, something shifts and begins to uncoil - planes become larger, details become more dextrous, and forms become more fluid and organic. At one point, the works are described as 'explosive.'  

Explosive isn't the wrong word to use in the context of Shrestha's canvases. But isn't quite the word that occured to me, either. What came to mind was a word I hadn't used in a while - 'roil.' Think of a thick, mysterious liquid stirred quickly in a glass and then photographed, mid-swirl and mid-settle. The works put me in mind of the moment right after an explosion, with elements caught mid-motion, mid-momentum. This has to do with the fact that they aren't exuberantly energetic or violent - there's a contained vitality to them, the reds, blues, greens and beiges expanding but also poised. 

Does this sense of something that is, but also isn't balance come from the artist's interest in music, particularly jazz? Is it part of his quest for the Source? And if it is, why isn't it as silent and still as the solitude and silence that he describes as the Truth? And is that oddly energetic sense of pause ruptured by a clutch of works from the 80s, whose bisecting, geometric lines seem to jar? 

It's so very interesting. I can't wait to see what comes next, because I feel I am seeing it all for the first time. 

A Walk Among Lines

I've always loved looking at line drawings. Maybe it was all the art lessons I spent putting pencil, crayon, and much later, charcoal to paper, the scraping and the smudging, the sooty fingertips and wrists, the fact of creating something with a well-timed or ill-advised stroke, I'm not sure. There were moments when I enjoyed this, and equally there were moments when I resented the betrayal of my lines. Sometimes there was (what seemed to me) an insurmountable gap between what I wanted to draw and what actually took shape, at other times the shape and form were right, but the lines themselves looked hesitant and tentative instead of being liquid and fluid. I'd flip through all the instructional art books my father had collected, and each of them held drawings that seemed impossibly perfect - a few lines, drawn energetically and elegantly, putting together a picture that was no less than a painting. I wanted for my drawings to have that spirit and verve, but there was no getting around it - lines and line drawings were a rite of passage, and the only way to push past the limitations of my lines was through regular practice. Woe betide the inconsistent art student! A few days away from pencil and paper, and my lines would flag. 

Couple - II Lovers by Jogen Chowdhury

I've lost track of when exactly I stopped taking weekly art lessons but whenever I've gone back, I start by drawing lines. And at the risk of repeating myself, you only have to tell me about a line drawing exhibit and I will find a way to be there. There's something magical about line drawings - they represent an idea in evolution, they have the quality of an artistic fingerprint, they can span the continuum from simple and spare to vivid and sensuous. As with the best verse, there's little room for obfuscation - the line is art at its most transparent, a reliable 'tell' of artistic talent and sometimes, artistic intent. Lines are, simply put, hard taskmasters.   

Lantern by Bikash Bhattacharjee

Don't believe me? Do? Either way, visit the Jehangir Nicholson Gallery for a look at 40 odd line drawings curated by none other than Sunil Patwardhan. Called "Taking the Line for a Walk," (a name borrowed from Paul Klee's famous quote), the show is altogether excellent. The great Indian modernists, and their successors, are  each shown engaged in their own particular trysts with the line. Whether it is Tyeb Mehta, who would much rather work without lines but has a distinctive style irrespective; or Ara, whose 'Nude,' composed entirely of charcoal and smudges, has a sensuous, smooth quality; Paritosh Sen, whose 'Gorilla,' composed of deft charcoal strokes, is all muscle and bristle and snarl; Jogen Chowdhury, whose creamishly thick squiggles collapse perspective while retaining coherent form, but who is equally adept with the delicate, multi-layered cross-hatchings that lend texture and weight but also lightness to large figurative bodies (look at Couple - II Lovers); Arpita Singh, whose scenes of discreet domestic disquiet have an almost stippled quality; Bikash Bhattarchjee, whose 'Lantern' is a masterpiece in subtle charcoal technique; Sadanand Bakre's limpid and monumental forms; Nikhil Biswas's angry, whirling pen and ink swirls. There are so many gems of works and almost-works in this exhibition. But my favourite is the last work I saw - a young girl in pigtails by Lalu Prasad Shaw. Square, solid and sad and rendered with an expert, economical expressiveness. And I haven't even mentioned V.S. Gaitonde, Ganesh Pyne, Raza, Souza yet.  

If you're at all interested in what poetry, calligraphy, scribbles, shadow, solidity and delicacy look like when set in motion by a few flicks of an accomplished artist's wrists, look at line drawings. Anywhere works, but this show could be a nice place to start.