An invitation I received from a young artist of his solo show that was held at the Forum Art Gallery in Chennai made me curious; and compelled me to visit the exhibition. As an image of the art work in the invitation it was different, attractive, charming and poetically elegant. The show titled “The Magnificent Life” by the visual artist Rajesh R.V. was an exhibition not of paintings rather collages as mixed media compositions.
Young and full of heady creative ideas, Rajesh gave me a walkthrough of all his mixed media collage works. As the title suggests his works are a celebration of life on this beautiful earth constituting all kinds of creatures – man, animals, mammals, birds, insects and myriad other small creatures that inhabit the surface of this dynamically living planet. The fundamental concept that runs through the entire show is about the balance of life and its energies among the diverse population of living creatures from micro to macro. The underlying theme of balance is the thread of connectivity that links all of Rajesh’s works together like different beads strung together. The most striking dimension of his work is his engagement with the medium of Papier Collé or collages developed only using paper. It is a technique of crafting paper with either forms or creating abstract shapes dependent on the sensibility of the artist. In the case of Rajesh, he has articulated with this medium and has evolved and developed the subject matter thematically based on the life on earth; cutting elegant silhouettes of man, woman, birds, butterflies, horse, deer, rabbit and the beautiful flora. Most of these images arise from his subconscious of empirical experiences of having observed the environment around him. He has perceptively, thoughtfully and intelligently engaged with glossy paper derived from different types of magazines like Vogue, National Geographic and Femina etc.
In his compositional structuring which is on linen canvas, he paints the background with different colours, textures as well as with marked and defined divisions of the background space into vertical, horizontal or squares, which however marks the main saliency that is at the heart of all the works. Some are compositionally designed as diptychs to literally advance his concept of balance or metaphorically as a duality that exists in nature. The most ubiquitous animal privileged is the horse, rabbit and the deer with the background filled with avian creatures particularly the migrating birds as well as the plantain tree and variety of flowers strewn across or in a calculated manner. The loveable creature in his works is the butterfly that is encapsulated within a circle or just fluttering around happily. The mood of his mixed media collage is happy and full of gaiety, an overt optimism and celebration of life generally through select preferred creatures. Man of course dominates the composition as the highest evolved animal intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. Yet it is to the man that Rajesh is gesturing as responsible for much of the imbalances of energies that exist in nature with over exploitation of forests, water resources and the polluted urban environment. It remains his plea to live in harmony and maintain the balance of energies as evident in the intangible symbols of yin and yang that governs nature and life generally. In other words he has created a utopia where there are no disruptions, discrepancies or imbalances.
In critically analyzing his compositions, one idea that singularly prevails is his concerted effort to clarify that the mother earth is living and growing and the realm of flora and fauna requires maintenance of harmonious balance and not an acrimonious existence. The balance he aims to establish is through the principles of art namely asymmetry and symmetry in compositional formatting with divisions and creatures and animals positioned to produce the visual balance or through division with squares and circles, which seminally establish his astute artistic brilliance, insightful observation of life, the empirical experiences internalized and perceptively translated to create artistic expressions that are as pragmatic and poetic, delicate and robust, lively and static, emotional and prosaic. The background grid is painted or textured creating visual interest, which is overlaid with his collage of paper cut forms. It is this combination painting and collage which gives his works a distinct character, setting him apart from other collage artists who have articulated purely with paper.
To elaborate his studied and intuitive balancing, a metaphor for the balance in nature that he is in quest of, the work titled “Popular Science XIII” has the background grid dividing the vertical space in the ratio of 1/3rd to 2/3rd and below this 2/3rd space is another horizontal division coloured in pink shade, which constitutes of circular elements. The larger vertical space is painted in cadmium yellow and the narrow strip adjacent to it in cream colour. A couple occupies the central space facing each other in a confrontational mode. The narrow strip in cream colour is charmingly filled with buds and leaves on a slender stem. Balancing the verticality of the man and woman are the deer as they leap and scamper about, disposed as horizontal elements. The whole composition is filled with interesting details of butterfly, lotus flowers and buds. But the interesting aspect of this composition is in the detailing that is represented within the circles. Rajesh has cut and stuck meticulously the details he seemed fit to be part of the entire universe.
Rajesh’s artistry develops a unique visual aesthetics, since his forms of varied living creatures are cut with meticulous precision, having the effect of delicate and elegant painted silhouettes. He has designed the human characters with a particular style that resonates with stylistic expressions from ancient civilization. Moreover his source of inspiration has been the comic books from the west, to which he was attracted to from a young impressionable age and swears by it, where the stylistic representation of the comic characters is filtered through in this body of works. There is subtle humour in the way he creates his animal world, as they leap and run and find their joys in little delights. Of course the most loveable characters are the horses, deer and rabbits. Horses predominate and for Rajesh it symbolizes power and remains a complex metaphor for human vulnerability. Horse also symbolizes authority, freedom, success and vitality. An extremely a graceful animal, Rajesh has taken absolute delight in rendering it according to his sensibility and perception as representative of both power and authority that in a way indirectly gestures to his artistic and imaginative powers and the authority of his vision as he brings it alive meaningfully in his work. Rabbit on the other hand is a layered motif moving between innocence, vulnerability and survival. The animal is also about abundance, intuition and the unconscious, important saliencies associated with him as an artist as abundant creativity, intuitive thoughts and approaches and the unconscious; from the layers of which emerge many of the imageries that come into play as part of the artist Rajesh’s vocabulary. Deer on the other hand is symbolic of grace, renewal, longing for freedom, strength and vulnerability. These characteristics resonate with artists generally and for Rajesh may be symbolic of his evolving and developing artistic persona.
The landscape of his mind intersects through an intuitive engagement with different dimensions of nature, resulting in works that are simply charming, filled with vitality of colours, elegant and eloquent artistry in the representation of the birds that have been delicately cut maintaining the levitational character as they swoop in or swing out to fly. Some of his most loveable works are the “Ganapati I, II, III” , “Ashva I, II, III”, where the horses predominantly are the protagonist, which according to Rajesh, “Philosophically, the horse reflects the human mind and senses—powerful, restless, and full of motion—while the rider symbolizes the ātman, or inner self, guiding it toward balance and awareness”. His diptych of “Taoism” carries the weight of his philosophy which according to the artist, “I explore the quiet balance that exists within all life through the idea of Yin and Yang. Yin carries the gentle, nurturing energy of the moon, water, earth, and night, while Yang reflects the active and radiant energy of the sun, fire, sky, and day”. In this diptych, Rajesh marks the climatic dimension of his philosophical energy, as it is a meticulous and precisely designed composition, which in its elegance, charm and beauty is akin to a goldsmith at work refining the stenciled forms. All his works are captivating and pure visual delight in its aesthetics.
DR. ASHRAFI S. BHAGAT
ART HISTORIAN, ART CRITIC, AUTHOR AND AN INDEPENDENT CURATOR
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AND FORMER HEAD [RETIRED]
DEPARTMENT OF FINE ATS
STELLA MARIS COLLEGE [AUTONOMOUS]
CHENNAI
