Feb 16 — It was a day deliberation on sensitive issues concerning the field of art. Talking about the real purpose of art and the inspirations behind creative works were two friends from London, who have been pursuing the cause of art for a long time now.Avtarjeet Dhanjal, the son of a farmer from Dhalla, who made it big in London, was today in the Government College of Art, Sector 10, along with his Polish film-maker friend, Tomasz Pobog-Malinowski. The purpose of the visit was an interactive session on the purpose behind the creation of art works and the inspiration behind them.
Dhanjal, who has gained a place for himself in the field of art, talked primarily about life in the small Punjab village, which forms an inseparable part of his life. His talk was titled ‘Drawing inspiration from my roots as a sculptor.’ Dhanjal, who is credited with holding refined shows of art, talked about his growth as an artist and his childhood experiences, which provided the much-needed inspiration for his creative endeavours.
As Dhanjal himself maintains, “The whole humanity is a large caravan travelling with time. In this caravan most people are busy pulling, pushing, carrying their possessions, sweating in a race of material achievements. It is the artist, who disengages himself from the entourage runs ahead of the caravan... visualises, where the caravan is coming from and where it is heading. Then the artist expresses this realisation and vision by singing a song, making a sculpture, or using any other medium to share his feelings with the world.”
Tomasz, on his part, focused on ‘Inspiration for an artist in digital age: A film maker’s perspective’. In his talk, the film maker (who is famous in his own right for having made a documentary on the life of Polish President Lech Walesa) talked about the various stages which an artists traverses, before he reaches the destination of creativity. Interestingly, Tomasz is visiting India with a purpose to study and understand the village where Avtarjeet spend his childhood and making a film on Avtarjeet.
Tomasz attached a lot of significance to the fact that the beginning of an artistic pursuit is not as difficult as its conclusion. “Starting a film is easy but ending it is not as easy. There, as an artist, you must confront two major questions: why are you making the product and for whom?” Tomasz talked about the importance of targeting the audience. “You may, as an artist, often wonder over how much to bare and how much to reveal, but you should always bear this fact in mind that art is for sharing. So you must respect your viewers. You must educate them and show them a different point of view — something which they may not themselves gather,” he said.
He also focused on the themes of art works in India vis-a-vis abroad. “Indian art is all about happiness in general, but the works which inspired European artists were more dolorous. They found roots in Christianity, which focuses primarily on suffering. So when we sit in comparison, Indian art is more pleasant than its European counterpart.”
About the creative process and the inspiration, Tomasz maintained that for an artist, the most precious moment is the one in which he conceives of a work of art. “In that flash of a second, the entire process is over. But since art has a purpose, the artist gets down to recording his deepest sentiments for the public to share. “Travelling through various ages of development, Tomasz described the digital age which, he said, offered extensive possibilities of opinion forming to students of art.
