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NEW YORK:
“I am sick and tired of intellectual heroism, of high-sounding
philosophical adventurism which is more an exercise in boredom
than anything else. Also, I don't want something bedroomish
or the instantly evocative, pleasurable works which all of us
painted in our early careers, Gaitonde, Husain and myself.”
Mohan
Samant was sitting in my apartment in the heart of Manhattan
describing his view of the essence and the process of painting
to an audience that included, beside myself, another Indian
artist, Bimal Bannerjee. The previous evening I met Samant for
the first time at the “vernissage” of his works in
a Madison Avenue gallery. The discreet, pink slip of paper stuck
in the catalogue noted that champagne as is the custom here
at openings will be served from 8 to p.m. Madison Avenue is
the Mecca of local as well as expatriate artists and to have
an opening in this high-powered, crazily competitive, gallery-infested
art district, be the gallery ever so small, is to underscore
an enviable modicum of success.
Samant
has been in New York for over a decade and can be considered
the doyen of the small bank of Indian artists which includes
Francis Souza, Kulkarni who is teaching at the Skidmore College
some distance outside of New York, Natvar Bhavsar, Bhagwan Kapoor
and Bimal Bannerjee. Most of the canvases in Samant's showing
are large, contemporary in idiom no doubt but also reflective
of his early preoccupation with Jain and Kangra miniatures as
well as the later study of ancient Sumerian tablets, Egyptian
hieroglyphics and the cave paintings at Lauscaux. As the catalogue
goes on to note: “The essence of these varied cultures,
as perceived and distilled by Samant in the very first works
he painted in America has continued to develop and expand in
these, his latest paintings.” It credits his oriental background
for his success in interpreting the timeless continuum of art
as it manifests itself in different places and at different
times.
'Part
of my work'
Samant
himself says this about his work: “Imaginative images,
such as scratches on sand, raised textures, these have always
been part of my work. To me a skilled person is one whose craftsmanship
is turned to imagination while a craftsman's need not. An artist
must, first and last, be a growing entity, one whose skill is
always tuned to building up certain vibrating qualities. You
see, a work of art is open to so many different interpretations.
Even when you start to paint, you are faced with a big choice.
You can say, “To hell with the canvas”, or “To
hell with the many colour combinations or the imagery. But all
the time you have these shields of metaphysical thought built
up in you through which you have to pass, back and forth. To
me now, it is a ritual, I can neither take orders nor make people
accept my orders. What I seek, perhaps, is an immediacy which
comes from shutting out all contact with the outside world so
that I can reach and start using pure energy. It is the purest,
rarified form of energy which is the beginning of the painting
but the moment you are aware of something that is beginning
to look like a form, the energy is deprived, is gone. So you
have to start all over again, beginning with re-establishing
the immediacy. This is the game that you play. The balance is
between purified thought and its inevitable, personal, associative
verbalization. The ratio between these two aspects, the positive
and negative aspects of thought, determine the success of the
painting.”
What about
the American art scene and the personality of its creator, the
Western artist, born and rooted in the Anglo-Saxon mythology?
Samant
dismisses the avant garde environment surrounding him with a
four-letter swear word. What he does admire however, because
naturally you then ask him why the hell does he continue to
live and work here, is the extraordinary vitality and power
of the social fabric. “At the moment we are watching the
destruction and ultimate death of this society but even its
death-throes are so violent and full of life, that the whole
thing is impossible to tear oneself away from”, he says.
The image of the bull frequently crops up in his conversation
as he contrasts it to the pale and sickly cow of the Indian
art scene. As for the personality of the American artist, for
even the large group of European and Slavic artists living in
this city must share that description, he considers it a technological
personality rather than one concerned with form. “To them,
the thrill lies in applying a thing that they have found, in
a new, more exciting way, not the involvement with form itself.
Not only have they destroyed the power of imagination itself
but built protective, verbal safeguards against anyone daring
to question their premises.”
How would
he explain the Indian artist's concern with form as something
which transcends this business of finding newer ways to say
the same old thing?
“In
terms of dharma and karma. Being able to become aware of the
uniqueness of form is dharma. That is, one must be able to arrive
at its essence, rid of all associative aspects, and this to
me, is dharma. Being able to grasp this essence would be karma.
The genuine artist must work within a format of lifelong maturation
in terms of art, a continuum of knowledge and awareness. In
time this metaphysical existence becomes a jungle in your head
through which it is necessary to find the needle of truth, the
dharma, which would be far easier to find in a tea-cup of ignorance.”
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