Tete-a-tete
Nature’s own
Nonika Singh

NATURE has been the constant factor in renowned sculptor and painter Shiv Singh’s life. Both natural elements and nature’s forces were his guide when as a small boy, growing up in a village Bassi Ghulam Hussain in Hoshiarpur district he would make objects out of sarkandas and draw prolifically on sand. Today, it his singular fountainhead of inspiration gushing forth by way of a dynamic visual vocabulary that not only blazes across in his water colour compositions but also his sculptures.

Of course, his detractors may say his signature style has remained static, but critics sense an evolving continuity in his work. He confesses that there has been no clear-cut departure in his style for, "With other artists influences come and go. My impressions have been imbedded deep within as part of the subconscious."

Hmmm ... this whole interplay of subconscious forces in an artist’s life ... isn’t it a kind of an exaggeration, a hyperbole of sorts? He asserts, "Not really. Before I start working I am clueless as to what I am going to paint or draw. The first stroke is deliberate. Thereafter, it leads to another and to the entire composition. True art emanates from within, propelled by its own force."

Yet, he doesn’t think artists are born, rather need to be trained, must practise extensively and must learn crafts too. He was fortunate enough to be a part of training at School of Art, Shimla that included many craft courses. He tried his hand at all kinds of crafts like metal inlay, even jewellery making before realising that wood and metals were best suited to his sculpting temperament.

Of course, he is equally comfortable with painting in volatile medium of watercolours lending his compositions the vibrancy, rhythm and harmony of nature. He shares, "If you are not going to exploit the transparency of this medium than you are doing injustice to it." Once more it is the childhood years of playing in choe, trying to arrest water’s flow that taught him how watercolours ought to be treated. But what explains the erotica that invariably seeps in his works? While his drawings series Bull and Women created quite a stir in 1993, taking puritans by the horns ... his water colour compositions include motifs that are symbolic yet definitely suggestive. He smiles, "Let us admit it, eroticism is an integral part of our existence`85we all live it. Besides what can be more forceful than symbols of fertility?"

In fact, it was the principle of fertility, the genesis of creativity that he was alluding to in his explicit series. Otherwise, in his watercolour compositions, the imagery is evocative, redolent with hidden meaning and layers. He reveals that to begin with he did foray into realistic work, "In my sculptures one could discern the limbs of a body but soon it dissolved into more abstract imagery."

However, he draws a firm line between bizarre and abstraction. Installation, the medium of new generation artists, too leaves him cold. He reasons, "What is the point of assembling art that is ephemeral?" Anyway, his sculptures have been immortalised and occupy a pride of place at IIT Kanpur, Punjabi University, Patiala, PAU, Ludhiana, Punjab Police Academy, Phillaur and many a public places. On doing commissioned work, though he is at times pained to see his creations not being properly looked after, he asserts, "No sculptor can survive without commissioned work." As for an artist’s struggle, he insists that an artist has to strive for his place all his life.

So, he refuses to pinpoint any defining moment that changed his life. Neither when he won a research fellowship to Germany, nor when he participated in the Third, Fourth and Fifth Triennale. Be it the sale of his works to the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi or when the House of Commons, Chamber Des Communes in Toronto honoured him ... all have been milestones, certainly not the objective of his art odyssey. On the long line up of awards including the National Award for sculpture and the President of India’s Silver Plaque for the best exhibit of the year 1982, he asserts, "Honours do not make an artist. Tomorrow, if I get a Padmashri, will it change my art or me? Awards do not enter my creative realm."

Indeed, in the artistic expanse only images of nature, glimpses of childhood, of direct intimate interface with joys of life are allowed to cross the threshold. And when all these meet the artist within him ... true art is born. Art that is not confined to self but one that is a visual experience to be shared with one and all. Like nature, it stretches forward to embrace and entrance the viewer in joyous celebration.

HOME