On the table, near the flower vase from which three red
dahlias sprout, an old paper back with a darkening cover is meticulously kept
as if to tell the visitors that the artist is just around. At the Sridharani
Gallery, New Delhi, a winter noon lazily sits on the steps at the amphitheatre.
The book is one of the collections of Osho Rajneesh edited by late Khushwant
Singh. The book has been read not once but several times, so say the yellowing
pages but surprisingly without any dog’s ears. But I do not think much about
Osho for I know most of the non-figurative/abstract artists read him for his
mellifluous voice soothes them and reaffirm their faith if not in life but in
their works that many people fail to decipher. Gopi Gajwani, the veteran artist
who has been a serene presence in Delhi’s art scene for almost half a century,
whose exhibition, ‘Meditative Silence’, currently on at the Sridharani Gallery
does read Osho and I am not surprised for the very same reason that I have just
mentioned. Once again, I do not think about Osho but I think of Khushwant
Singh, the editor, who had not only penned the history of Sikhs but also
essayed fictionally though, the history of partition in his ‘Train to Pakistan’.
Gopi Gajwani, as a seven year old chid was there in one of those trains that
ran in the opposite direction from the Sindh region without knowing what future
had in store for him and his three siblings.
(Display of Gopi Gajwani's works at Sridharani)
I dare not to ask whether he was reminiscing those days as
he picked up the book yet again to read, as Gopi Gajwani enters the gallery. It
would be too intrusive, I tell myself but as I sit and look at the works on
display, a series of non-figurative paintings and drawings, in a silent
communion with the artist, I see the black lines that run mostly vertical,
abruptly stopping at times and at other times dividing the canvas off the
centre into two asymmetrical halves, I pick up courage to ask him about the
partition days. According to Gajwani, he as a child did not face the cruelties of
it or rather he was too young to know it. He was happy to run barefoot along
the footpaths in Old Delhi where they had come to settle, play marbles and fly
kites. Children often shut the cruel world out by sleeping endlessly; for many
other children having parents around is enough. Come whatever may they do not
wince; parents make their world complete. While growing up Gajwani knew the
world was different from what he thought about it. The vastness of Sindh faded
slowly like the last remnants of the events of a dream in the waking man’s mind
and in came India, a new geographical and political entity and everyone was
destined to live with it.
(work by Gopi Gajwani)
Look carefully at the works of Gajwani; they are
non-figurative works (though Kishore Singh who has written the catalogue at the
outset itself makes an effort to distinguish the artist from being an ‘abstract’
artist. According to Singh, qualifying Gajwani an abstract art would be a
recognition and failure of it at once). One sees the colours keep coming up in
bold patches without hiding their origin as carefully considered brush strokes
and fading into the layers of other colours (reds, browns, ochre, green, black
and so on) only to resurface again in some unexpected part of the pictorial
surface, imparting a sense of surreal meandering of eyes. One sense of vision
or visual experience fades away and another one takes its place. However,
imposing the biographical details of the artist into the works would be a sort
of over reading the works. “Figurative art is not my forte,” says Gajwani
smiling profusely and it is ironic that an artist who spent almost thirty years
as a graphic designer for the USIS sponsored magazine SPAN. Charles Fabri, one
of the pioneering art critics in India welcomed Gajwani’s works with a title ‘Powerful
Abstractions’ in his famous column in the Statesman; it was in mid 60s.
However, it was not Fabri’s influential comment that had made Gajwani stick to
the language of abstraction.
(work by Gopi Gajwani)
Educated in the Delhi Polytechnic, which would become today’s
Delhi College of Art, Gajwani studied with Arpita Singh, Paramjit Singh and
many other famous contemporaries. Pioneers of Indian modernism namely Sailoze
Mukherjee, Biren De and Bhabesh Sanyal were his teachers. “Walking around
without a sketchbook was severely derided and figurative sketching was a must
in those days,” Gajwani remembers. International abstraction brought in by the
High Modernist movements in the west had already taken the Indian art also by
force and a rigorous soul search was underway in order to find an indigenous art
language. The ‘modern’ art of 1960s and 70s should be seen in this light; on
the one hand the artists were trying to be at par with the western internationalism
and on the other hand they were disputing this internationalism to find indigenous
roots of their own art. In both the cases experiments for a newer form took
predominance and it was reflected both in the figurative and abstract art
languages. Non-figurative abstraction got an upper hand pushing the post-cubist
and post-expressionist figurative experiments in India and there was a wave of
abstraction all over India in 1960s and 70s. Gajwani remains faithful to the
wave that had brought him into the art scene and anchored there firmly.
(work by Gopi Gajwani)
Unlike many abstract artists in India or elsewhere, Gajwani
does not use too much of spiritual jargon to explain his works. Perhaps, it
comes from his early association with the artists’ movement in Delhi, Shilpi
Chakra where even the abstract artists like R.K.Dhawan had a few theories about
their society, world and politics in general. For them abstract art was all about
being modern not about being escapists, and like in the South, the artists
demanded a special place in the modern discourse by virtue of their abstract
art. Gajwani could grow up in the cool shade of this discourse and could come
into contact with most of the intellectuals who defined the Indian art ethos of
the time including J.Swaminathan, Abu Abraham, O.V.Vijayan and so on. According
to Gajwani, Indian cartoonists had more powerful lines than the professional
artists. As a person who has seen Delhi’s art scene from the close quarters,
Gajwani could have taken sides but he chose to remain aloof but at the same
time visiting almost all the exhibitions in Delhi, irrespective of the artists’
gender, age or fame. “Young artists may have less wisdom but their potential to
move towards it is immense,” says Gajwani and also he believes that experiments
are done when one is young and if one keeps experimenting throughout the life
the whole idea of life would be lost. “At some point one has to find the way.”
(work by Gopi Gajwani)
Gajwani had found his way in music and he almost felt that
his art was like music or rather music itself. Each work of Gajwani is
conceived like a musical notation in the artist’s mind and what he needs to do
is to transfer those onto the painterly surface. He quotes Michael Angelo who
had said that the judgement of the artist should be stronger than the work
itself. Where to start a colour and where to end it without breaking the rhythm
and movement is more important than playing with colours for the sake of doing
it. If a painting is for looking at, then of course you have all the reasons to
keep on looking at Gajwani’s paintings. If you are there to read meanings out
of his paintings, may be it wouldn’t be that pleasant an experience. I resist
myself from force reading meanings out of his works and try to see what makes
an artist pursue a language and create symphonies while constantly breaking
patterns. Many abstract artists fall prey to their own patterns and mediums.
Gajwani seems to negate patterns in all his works. He had started working from
a small room at his home and he still does the same though the size of the
studio has increased. “I could grow with all the great masters including Tyeb
Mehta, Swaminathan, A.Ramachandran, V.S.Gaitonde and many more. Art was the
only concern for all of us though most of us had to struggle as art was not
bringing any money to us. J.Swaminathan had the courage to silence the big star
of art theory at that time, Clement Greenberg in one of the formal gatherings
held in Delhi. Art critics were stars then. Then slowly the degeneration set
in. I will not blame anyone for decaying is part of life and that is applicable
to art too,” says Gajwani. When one is too good there are possibilities that
he/she suffers silently a lot. Gajwani is too good to fault as a human being
and his works are not just meditative silences but the painterly transference
of his silent sufferings too.
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