Voice of art
Surekha Kadapa-Bose

Artists, whose abstract works fetch crores in the international art market, do not have many takers in their homeland

— Salvodar Dali, surrealist artist from Spain

The followers of abstract art believe it to be representational expression rather than photographic one. A picture, before being an elephant, a nude, a landscape or anything else is essentially a flat surface covered with colours assembled in a certain order. Like music with sounds, bereft of words, which breaks the rules of academic painting, and focuses on visual effects instead of details.

As Paul Gauguin said, "Do not paint too much after nature. Art is an abstraction; derive this abstraction from nature while dreaming before it, and think more of the creation which will result than nature."

Goa-based abstract artist Devi Prasad Rao, presently on a commissioned work project in Zurich, says, "Abstract art does not provide such easiness...it’s actually challenging to find a meaning in the work of an abstract painter. A viewer is compelled to interpret it according to his or her moods."

Art has the power to extend our capacities beyond those that nature originally endowed us with, more so abstract art. At times, it exercises our emotional excess. Like the anecdote Shyam Landge, Mumbai-based abstract artist, shares. It was his maiden exhibition at the city’s famed Jehangir Art Gallery when veteran art historian, critic and curator, Dr Sarayu Doshi, had asked: "Why is there so much sadness in your works?"

A jubilant Landge had felt vindicated then. He says, "I had made my point. What to others must have looked like dripping paint, a blotch here and there of acrylic on canvass had communicated to Dr Doshi exactly what I wanted to convey. The paintings were a series on the misery that the 2005 floods in Mumbai had brought. I too was caught in Nature’s fury for two consecutive days and was saddened by the immense tragedy it had brought upon us."

Before his exhibition was over, Langde had sold most of his paintings, including one bought by Dr Joshi.

This play with colours — pure and without any trace of the objects found in nature — is emphasised by contemporary abstract art practitioner, Prabhakar Kolte, who said in one of his interviews, "Our colours on canvass speak volumes or remain silent depending on our moods. We make the viewer think."

It’s intriguing that abstract artists like S. H. Raza, Ram Kumar, Laxman Shrestha, Tyeb Mehta, V. S. Gaitonde and very few others, whose work fetch crores in the international art market, have not many takers in their homeland.

"Ours is a narrative tradition. We grow up hearing stories from the epics…. A story a day and it does not end. Our temples, with their profuse carvings, leave nothing to the imagination. Is it surprising then that we veer towards the figurative?" asks Geetha Mehra, owner of Saakshi Gallery in Mumbai.

Adds Gautum Patole, charcoal figurative artist and co-owner of gallery Art Desh, "I find it difficult to understand abstract art. Some are weird in the name of abstract work. The advantage of this work is that one can derive one’s own conclusion looking at the works. And frankly speaking except for the works of legends, people here look at abstract art only to fill the blank space on the walls!"

This sadly is true that an abstract art is used by interior designers to sell booming real estate units. Customers who don’t know anything of art are duped by colour play in abstract works on their walls and get hooked to buy the place.

"Working on abstract art isn’t easy. It’s challenging to create a really good abstract work. Only use of flashy of colours or strokes doesn’t make for a good work. A good-looking abstract work isn’t even normally considered a good work. Abstract work is truly connected with aesthetic feelings of a person," elaborates Rao.

Apathy towards abstract art isn’t reflected abroad. Just as we grow up hearing the narratives and epics, so do children of the western world. Even they are idol worshippers and have beautiful well preserved monuments full of figurative works. Children’s comic books, too, have figurative explanation. In spite of all this, abstract art form is in a big league there. Every second artist dabbles in abstract and gets buyers and appreciators.

Landge has a last say, "We are almost always two decades behind most aspects from the West. Twenty years down the line may be this apathy will turn into love!"

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