Chithra K. S.
 

Pulp Fictions

This section features works on paper by Anupam Sud, Dilip Ranade and Nagji Patel – who have explored the surface by weaving in imagery and narratives that offer a complex fictitious matrix. The elements in these compositions are engaged in action and embrace as well as embed the paper pulp surface with intriguing imprints.

Watercolour paintings and studies by Anupam Sud, one of the most pioneering printmakers of her generation in India, navigate between an array of nude figures and close-up portraits. These self-contained depictions set the gaze on sexuality, identity and human relationships in an extremely silent and non-verbal mode. The figures featured are engrossed in contemplation. The creative emphasis on the nude bodies contrasted with portraits – all devoid of any cultural markings shows possibilities of unburdening the baggage of associations and experiencing the bare human existence. In these watercolour paintings, the figures Sud portrays retain the sculpturesque quality, yet lend themselves to the surface, diluting and percolating.

The two watercolour paintings by Dilip Ranade are emphasised with a surreal undertone while juxtaposing mystery and absurdity. Animals have been a prominent part of his oeuvre, often featured with startling details, creating a fantasy-like quality. The human and animal worlds converge in a strange sequence of dramatic actions and dialogues leading to unique visual imagery. The images are symbolic and allegorical. The actions are breathtaking and quirky. Ranade’s ability to present a macro and a micro view of the narrative and imagery can be witnessed here. The two untitled watercolour paintings span from deep philosophical aspects like existentialism to a purely sensual act of touch/feel rendered with humour and skill. 

In drawings by Nagji Patel, who is best known for his monumental stone sculptures, the tactile quality and versatile forms of his sculptures lend themselves to the two-dimensional surface in an immensely fluid manner.  While his rural upbringing seemed to have played a big role in the way he approached natural materials like clay and stone in his creations; his drawings and studies bring out an eternal quality of the rural art forms and motifs. His engagement with teaching art to younger children also had an imprint on his drawings. Much like the way he sculpted – leaving some surfaces clear and shining – the drawings depict elements that emerge out of the dark hatched surface in minimal colour.

© Author and The Guild

Anupam Sud