bodhana's breath of visual fiber by nitin arun kulkarni

A new black road He lays,With His kohl of knowledge…Stretching as far as my sight,Wherever I wish, my Treasure will take me.

-Dnyaneshwari1-23

a decade of fabric collages and drawings

VASANT WANKHEDE

25th - 31st March 2008

Jehangir Nicholson GalleryNational Centre for Performing Arts, Mumbai

www.bodhana.in

dedicated to Shankar Balwant Palsikar

It was very difficult to word the meaning of my paintings – so much so that I could not give them a proper title. So, I simply call them “ COLLAGES “.

Recently, I came across the following passage from the book “AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A YOGI “ which I believe gives the exact meaning of my paintings. Cosmic illusion: Literally “the measure”. Maya is the magical power in Creation by which limitations and divisions are apparently present in the Immeasurable and Inseparable .

Emerson wrote the following poem about Maya:Illusion works impenetrable,Weaving webs innumerable,Her grey pictures never failCrowd each other, veil on veil:Charmer who will be believed,By man who thirsts to be deceived.

I hope this shall guide you to understand my paintings when they are looked at meditatively.

(Excerpt from a letter written by Vasant Wankhede in 1992 as a response to an article written on him by Dnyaneshwar Nadkarni)

Wankhede - a personal view by Mehlli Gobhai

Ever since I first saw Wankhede’s work, I want to return to it again and again which is one test of any truly meaningful work of art. I am fortunate to have a friend who has one of his works in her studio and I find myself needing to come back to it for reassurance that in the meaningless acrobatics and the flashy circus-acts of a great deal of the current art scene in the city, that there are some who are continuing to follow their own unswerving path, free from the seduction of the market forces and shifting current trends. The work I am talking about is a collage of raw canvas on canvas and it always seems to have the answer to any and all of the questionings and anxieties that I might be facing at the time. I spend some time with it and in its quiet perfection and ultimate simplicity, I find my bearings again and the world seems to make some sense again.

All the works of Wankhede that I have seen give me the unreal feeling of being the culmination and end result of a series of natural forces without the intervention of a human hand. The discipline, the training of a superbly honed sensibility is most definitely there, but the work ultimately looks effortless, like breathing or a heartbeat –the ultimate result of the miraculously complex but invisible human machinery. The pieces of fabric, the few gashes and slices color, line, handled and placed with the utmost restraint but with the deceptive appearance of a natural phenomena, like the falling of a leaf when its time has come for falling. The finished work is ultimately just there, unmovable, asserting its own, very special place in the world. The work of art is pulsatingly there but its creator has effaced his own personality and has withdrawn, distanced himself from the work. This, to me is the true test of a great work of art, unlike so much of current work that has the strong imprint of the artist smeared all over it. I want to see the work of art and not the boring individual who created it!

At this stage in my effort to describe the impact of Wankhede’s work, I must mention another work of art that I periodically need to return to for sustenance. It is a faded reproduction of a Thirteenth-Century Chinese painting that I think is one of the very great paintings of all time and has a direct bearing on what I have tried to express. It is a still life of six persimmons placed in the lower half of the painting in achingly perfect grey washes. Nothing is painted in the space above but the grey expanse is charged with the most incredible energy and life force. It very simply says ‘Attributed to Mu-ch’I, Early 13th C’ and it has all the answers to all the questions in the world.

Veteran painter Vasant Wankhede belongs to the generation of painters who believed that the true meaning of ‘spiritual’ is nothing but having faith in your creative deeds and following these under the guru’s blessings. This essential aspect solemnizes life; and this sanctity of life is an inseparable component of art-life function. His teacher-guru Lt. Shankar Palsikar guided him through his student days at Sir J.J. School of art. The doyen’s remarks on his work used to be minimal but pertinent like those of a spiritual guru.

Wankhede’s faithful persistence in abstraction nurtured his existence and gave him the confidence to work in the chosen idiom of painting. From 1977 he started using paper as his medium instead of paint. Later once when he was hospitalized he came upon the bandage cloth; out of inner necessity, it came to him as his new medium of art. He said he uses cloth “to replace paint”; the minimalist visual of fabric gives expounding life to his art. Vasant Wankhede has been able to create an indelible mark on the Indian art scene through his unique style of abstracts (Fabric Collages). This exhibition consists of a decade of his works (1996-2007) that display the vigor and versatility of his idiom.

In the academic environment of art school, abstraction comes naturally to any creative individual, but it is later that it takes the shape of a revolt. In the context of creativity, abstraction has knowingly or unknowingly been considered the highest form of expression. And any student’s study of artists like Klee, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Malevich and Rothko makes this belief stronger. Wankhede did admire the art of Paul Klee and V. S. Gaitonde, but no one inspired him as much as his guru, Prof. Palsikar. Looking at his achromatic works Prof. Palsikar once said to him “Your works bear

Our spiritual life must be a work of creation. Whether we are within a religion or outside a religion, or against the religion; we can only live by faith, a burning faith in the spiritual values of man. -“BhagvadGita”abouttheUpanishad.

resemblance with that of British painter John Piper. You should study his paintings”. After hearing this Wankhede searched & studied the available prints of John Piper. Besides, his confidence doubled due to the encouragement from Palsikar. Wankhede also had the good fortune of hearing the spiritual thoughts of Palsikar, because of which he too read many books on the subject. Right up to the completion of his diploma Wankhede received Palsikar’s benevolence.

In due course Wankhede created his own path within the stream of abstraction with a strong emphasis on experimentation - once while in art school he had used a shaving blade like a knife for drawing; at times he pasted objects as they were on the surface & considered it to be a work of art. At that time a new medium was born for his aesthetic expression, the waste materials came as neglected fractions that had high visual resonance. He used old printed calendars with pictures, paper with different textural quality. Similarly he made use of printed matter in the ancient Marathi script ‘Modi’ and gave it a visual form. In his free time at his work place, he would draw. These drawings show the spirit of a free soul in the flow of line, a line showing layers of surfaces — of paper or fabric, or perhaps, what lies beneath layers of desire…

That is beautiful which is produced by the inner need, which springs from the soul… -WassilyKandinsky

“I must peel off all the layers of desire to reach THAT ‘Emptiness’ – ‘Nothingness’. Desire changes its nature, its form and drags me in the net again and again. Desire puts a beautiful mask on my face and deceives me”. -VasantWankhede

UNTITLEDMIXED MEDIA ON CANVAS40”X36”1998

UNTITLEDFABRIC COLLAGE ON CANVAS36”X 34”1998

UNTITLEDMIXED MEDIA ON CANVAS36”X 34”1996

UNTITLEDFABRIC COLLAGE ON CANVAS36”X 34”1998

The events and objects in nature bear ease in their uniformity, but not a stark orderliness. Wankhede provides an example: “not a single grain of sand is identical to the other, as scientists have proven.”

What Wankhede discovered as an object-medium for his ‘collages’ is adaptable, at once linear and expansive, but not peripheral as a painted shape. The colour is visually embedded and lumpless… transparent and at the same time, opaque. This veil, its surface, volume, covering can take the shape of any everyday object it wraps around. We use it to cover our body, to fulfill a need to hide, a binding… a dubious self-adornment.

For Wankhede this fabric enters the surface of canvas and gets glued onto it under his mastery. Hiding something that can’t be hidden; an emptiness, a blankness — it therefore enters the depth of the surface and plants in it a poetic intrigue.

The magnificence of this process is that any fabric — fresh, used or tattered comes to the view of the creator, settling on the surface in such a manner that it relinquishes its own entity and submerges solemnly in the breathing space in a way that one starts ‘seeing’ the breath of the fiber with whose participation the thread formation has taken place and the linearity has got its existence — going away from its own origin while yet living in harmony with other similar linear entities overlaid. This spread is not possible without the compliant breathing space in between. The expanse of the color-shape is the expanse that spreads at a time on the area of the canvas. Gluing is a technique, which by the immediacy of its nature generates an intimacy between layers. This is used for creating a visual configuration which envelops threads over and under in a process of partial uncovering, saturating with gathers of threads, breakage, marks of toil and the pressure of the worldly affairs on to the surface of the canvas like a mold of life’s sufferings without losing its grain; the color emerges as a sudden revelation, an enlightenment, surpassing the surface. And then this visual

Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes ‘visible’. -PaulKlee

surface suffuses us, takes us in to the abyss of a pictorial womb.

Can we really call these ‘Paintings’ Collages? Collage is a technique of composing a work of art by pasting on a single surface various materials, not normally associated with one another, as newspaper clippings, parts of photographs, bus tickets etc. The origin of a collage is in Synthetic Cubism of Picasso & Braque. There the dual nature of the technique was welcomed because the character of the different materials pronounced their own existence and still together they showed one visual entity. This ‘duality’ was used effectively by confusing the viewers’ senses and breaking the picture surface visually. Although later collage was used by various artists in varied manners, the conceptual aspect has to be taken in to consideration because here the nature of the material to be fused on canvas is homogenous. The visuals made visible by Wankhede have to be called ‘Suffusions’, for their fusing and suffusing nature; they unite the fibers by still maintaining their identity as subtle variants of fiber.

Wankhede’s art can be removed from the concept of ‘collage’, which gives emphasis on duality of visual perception; in fact these ‘Suffusions’ reflect a non-dual nature. The fabric gets merged with a slightly different fabric on the main surface, which is also fabric. Most importantly the visual thus created by the material is ‘devoid’ of material. The viewer may get a hint of the material but is still taken away from its identity. This gives a clear indication towards presenting the presence of ‘spirit’ through art.

The ‘Spirit’ becomes the subject, overriding the entity of matter.

The highest function of art is to express the divine or absolute spirit. -Hegel

‘Brahman’ (supreme spirit) is the only truth, the world is illusion, and there is ultimately no difference between Brahman and individual self. -AdiShankarafrom‘Advaita’(Nondualistic)philosophy

Objects in life possess this dual character and the art maker is always linked with the inner sound of the object which actually reflects his own inner life.

In its function, life brings along transitory commotions that sometimes shatter its own equilibrium. The art maker who has been treating the practicalities of life as devoid of the creative process of art making, unknowingly accepts this duality. When this dilemma of life gets amplified and the art maker can’t digest it, he comes back to his creative space — his inner space bearing at all times an eventfulness that makes even the act of non-thinking a meaningful one.

Sometimes the soul accepts every event of life as spiritual. Once so, the state may remain eternal. The vision gets connected for eternity to the inner soul that has come a long way, getting molded along life. Every vision then starts transmitting the essence of life’s emotion – miseries, bliss, and various other sentiments. These visions become the Inspiration.

Any object has a dual effect; it is both a ‘sign’ with a particular purpose, and also a form capable of producing an ‘inner sound’ -Schopenhauer

“Inclinations will keep on emerging; it is not an easy matter to be a detached witness”. “No matter how you dodge them, the waves will drench you even if you manage not to be pulled in”. -VasantWankhede

“Even if an inspiration arises, there must be the courage to shed aside that very inspiration. Inspiration is an outcome of aspiration”.“Inspirations come like the incessant waves that wash over the seashore”.

A creative act springs up from life in the sense that it ‘repeals’ from life towards spiritual.

This dual nature of art-life is necessary for the artist as it engages him with ideas that feed his creative process and give meaning to his life.

The equilibrium in life, which is difficult to achieve becomes possible in the pictorial container of a painting. The sensory signals of fragments of objects are interpreted as the chemistry of balance, harmony and rhythm. This aesthetic measure remains not only a visual array but establishes a ‘sacred’ discovery. The individuality of the artist depends upon his approach to link the pictorial with the used medium at its extremity… as Wankhede says: “ to transform the medium in a work of art is, the ‘means’ to the ‘End’ ”.

Wankhede has successfully created a link between life’s turmoil and inner spirit through the genuineness of his unique technique. What the entire world uses only as a necessity, craft or adornment, he has used as a medium to reach inner spirituality. The dual nature of art-life starts merging in to one entity while retaining their liberty. The fabric at times becomes colour, texture, line and form and still reminds us of the fiber of the material mankind.

The two opposite energies are required for any creation The warp and weft overlap to form the fabric… and ‘breath’ is the proof of life. Experiencing one’s own breath and the weave of the body is the ultimate realization of life… When a visionary like Wankhede weaves his canvases with the ‘breath’ of life, then other souls vibrate, paddle, navigate and grow with these signs of universal human life-spirit. Wankhede’s ‘Suffusions’ become the proclamation of a creative celebration of life…

-NitinArunKulkarni2008

The art of mastering life is the prerequisite for all further forms of expression. -PaulKlee

An artist’s destiny is to have faith in his own life activity and especially creative activity. One may feel that this faith uses the artist for its own cause, or that the artist poses before himself as his own destiny. The artist who has chosen the ‘abstract’ idiom tends to move away from the mundane not as an escape but as a pious triumph.

UNTITLEDFABRIC COLLAGE ON CANVAS34” X 30”2007

In India there are many examples of spiritually inclined individuals who, while experiencing extreme hardships in the outer, practical world, have still lived their life listening to their inner voice as a spiritual direction.

There are some Indian abstract painters who choose to make decisions and lead a life of creating art, even though it may not get immediate appreciation.

Therefore as one thinks about abstract painting in India today, it becomes difficult to locate it in a contemporary art scene which indirectly reflects a change in an urban consumerist culture to which it relates.

This realization forces one to think about creative activity of this nature in a different way. The chosen direction of the artist and his adherence to it become extremely important. The values which give strength to the artist become valuable. These are the values that bring fragrance to a creative work.

The same happens with Wankhede’s works. In a ride of modern and post-modern ideas, Wankhede’s decisions make you wait. Once you await their silent beauty, the fragrance reaches you.

-MahendraDamle2008

All Drawings

UNTITLEDPEN ON PAPER14” X 11”

Vasant Wankhedeb. 28th April, 1936. Maharashtra, India.

Completed Diploma in Drawing and Painting, from Sir JJ School of Arts, Mumbai, 1959.

Solo Exhibits1965 - 1967 – Taj Art Gallery1969 – Pundole Art Gallery, Oils on Canvases1972 – Jehangir Art Gallery1973 – Jehangir Art Gallery1977 – Taj Art Gallery, Calligraphic Collage Work.1986 – Pundole Art Gallery, Calligraphic Collage Work1990 – Pundole Art Gallery, Fabric Collages.1993 – Pundole Art Gallery, Fabric Collages.1999 – Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Retrospective

Select Participations1993 – ‘A Critical Difference’ – an exhibition of Contemporary Indian Art,

touring six cities in UK. Organized and sponsored by Aberystwyth Art Centre and Welsh Art Council.

1996 – ‘Urban Signals Shifting Images’ – inaugural exhibition of The Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Mumbai.

1996 – 6th Bharat Bhavan Biennale of Contemporary Indian Art, Bhopal.1997 – 50 years of Art in Mumbai, 1947-1997. Organized by National Gallery

of Modern Art, Mumbai.2004 – ‘The Search’ paintings from National Gallery of Modern Art at

Muscat, Sultanate of Oman.

FilmsThe Ungrateful ManWomen – a tribute.SiddharthaWarli Paintings (National Award)Gopal Deoskar

Awards for Recognition1984 – Silver Lotus for Animation (National Award)1985 – Attended Cambridge Film Festival1986 – Silver Lotus for Direction

CollectionsNational Gallery of Modern Art, New DelhiNational Gallery of Modern Art, MumbaiState Bank of IndiaAir IndiaTaj Mahal HotelLarsen and ToubroIDBIUB HouseMilan Museum, ItalyAditya Birla GroupH.Van Der Giessltd.on, HollandSkypak Couriers Ltd.Hotel Sea RockTanishqMustan CurrimjeeMicoGlenbarra Art Museum, JapanRustom HormazdiyarSydney Gomes

He who dwells in every heartI worship.At his feet lie My blossoms of perspiration.

-Dnyaneshwari18-917

Curator Jesal Thacker

Text Mehlli GobhaiNitin Arun KulkarniMahendra Damle

Translator & EditorRajalakshmi Pandit

Design Nirmal Biswas

PhotographySanjeev Prabhu

Project Co-ordinatorAmi Kothari Gupta

Publisherbodhana arts foundation

Copyrights © 2008 Breath of Visual Fiber lies with bodhana arts foundation

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used without the prior consent of the publisher.

bodhana's breath of visual fiber by nitin arun kulkarni

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