(artist Balucharan)
“I live in a demotivating society,” says Balucharan, a
thirty five year old artist who has currently put up his second solo exhibition
at the Lalitha Kala Academy Gallery, Vyloppilli Cultural Centre, Trivandrum.
Titled ‘Death’ this exhibition ironically has more ‘fantastic life’ in it in
the form of painterly narratives. They do not strictly qualify as ‘narratives’
though; they are quasi-narratives with a scene loaded with cheerful and at
times grave ironies culled from the interior life of the artist himself. There
are two obvious sections in the exhibition; one, with the works that Balucharan
had done in the initial years after his ‘official’ entry into ‘painting’ and
two, the recent body of works that shows a different iconography and narrative
style. The former set has dark tones almost reminding one of the works of or
portions of works by the German Expressionist master, Max Beckman. In the
latter set Balucharan moves between East and West as one could see both the
influences of the masters of Eastern and Western modern-contemporary paintings.
(painting by Balucharan)
Balucharan is unapologetic about the influences. Having
studied Applied Art for the artist painting was a covetable target but had to
be achieved with a great difficulty. Hailing from a moderate family, according to
him, with his father doing wood works for hotel interiors Balucharan had
financial difficulty in pursuing college studies. Prevailing conditions of
finance led him to take up odd jobs while pursuing a degree course in History
and only when he collected enough money for his studies he could apply for
formal education in fine arts; there too financial consideration came to fore
and he was guided to take up Commercial Art for graduate studies. After
graduating in Applied Art from Thrissur Fine Arts College, Balucharan joined
the advertising world and worked for a few years. He wanted to be a painter
always and once he got financial freedom, he took up painting and now he works
in a firm in Trivandrum and paints at home.
(painting by Balucharan)
That may not be an exceptional story because many do much
more than this. But what makes Balucharan’s works interesting is the way he
sees himself and the world in his works. The first body of works that I have
mentioned earlier, which could be called his ‘grey period’ all have some kind
of a drama going on as the central theme and in that drama either an
unsuspecting human being or a harmless animal like a rabbit is confined,
observed, teased and even tortured. In all these charades the focus of their
aggression is the surrogate being of the artist himself. Someone coming with an
applied art background to become a painter would often face with more ridicule
than acceptance. In the general parlance an applied artist is a ‘commercial
artist’ who works ‘for’ other people and their ideas whereas the ‘artists’ are
the ones who work for themselves with all kinds of freedom under the sky.
Though this is the myth, when it comes to monetary matters both the applied and
creative artists respond more or less in the same manner.
(painting by Balucharan)
Balucharan is the rabbit inside the jar or the man inside
the art gallery with guns pointing at him. It is from these experiences he says
that he lives in a demotivating society. In his grey phase of painting,
Balucharan was ridiculed by one and all. “I go to the places where art camps
and other art functions take place. They look at me curiously. They feel that I
am some kind of an intruder. They do not believe that I am artist. Even my
neighbors do not understand that an artist could be like me, observant, aloof
but enthusiastic in artistic surroundings,” he says. Balucharan started off as
a doodler and scribbler then an artist who drew a lot. According to him he
could draw a chair hundred times till it loses its ‘chariness’ and becomes
something else. This kind of drawing practice took him to a spiritual trip; a
trip which is unlike the regular spiritual trips. “I understood objects and
human beings. I also understood there is not much in their ridicule either.
They are poor people.” He lost interest in people perhaps when he realized that
they too were people caught up in their own situations, not really the
perpetrators of threat but the victims of their own acts.
(painting by Balucharan)
With this knowledge, largely liberated, we could see
Balucharan entering his ‘pink period’. He seems to have found his protagonist
in these paintings; a sort of anxious chubby being which is neither a cherub
nor a human being. But the artist would insist that it is his own surrogate but
with some kind of genital ambiguity. This ambiguity is deliberate for the
artist believes that he is a transitory being; neither a child nor a grown up
person, not a god and not even a demon. He looks like as if he is taken out of
his protective shell. He has a peculiar hair-do that resembles the matted locks
of the ancient sages; sometimes they have wings and automatic rifles in their
hands. Surrounding them are horses, horsemen, rabbits, copulating dogs and cats
and so on. The phantasmagoric scenery in the paintings could be unsettling for
many for the starkness of the iconic appearance of the protagonist against a
surreal backdrop is too ‘abnormal’ to accept. But stylistically these are
identifiable with the works of Rene Magritte and Yue Minjun.
(painting by Balucharan)
Balucharan accepts his stylistic influences and says that he
is more comfortable with the Renaissance painters than the contemporary ones. I
would say if his grey period paintings were the embodiments of the gazes that
the other people held over/on him, the pink period works show how Balucharan
has gained confidence to articulate himself within a canvas (therefore within
the society) and from their observe the society in turn. If he was the object
of others’ gaze in the former body, in the latest body we could see him as the
one observing. But in the process he makes himself quite a bold scene. He has
bugles and guns, roses and wings, the ability to sin and atone and live the
life of his own, even to the extent of being an asexual one or the one who has
transcended sexual orientations of any kind. Calling his works/exhibition ‘Death’
is metaphorical for the death here is also a re-birth, second life of the
artist as a confident being. It could be the death of the society that he had
been afraid of. It could also be the death of that coward inside him. It could
be the death of conventions and restrictive archetypes. It could be the death
of his nightmares. Balucharan could now change the scale of his works and also
animate the iconic protagonist a bit. Postures do change in the paintings but
there is kind of stiffness or diffidence in them. If it is deliberate, let it
prevail and if it is not, painting is the only way to animate them further.
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