|
In the early 70s, artists have used narrative
devices in many ways to transform the mundane
into the magical. They locate the mythic into a
world of memory. They use fantasy to express
personal fears and anxieties, often giving them
a dream-like intensity. KG Subramanyan’s Goddess
at Goalpara at the NGMA is a witty pastoral
image where the four armed goddess is seen
chasing the buffalo demon. On another level, A
Ramachandran endows the temporal with a sense of
timelessness. In Incarnation, the beautiful
tribal woman, framed by the blossoming flame of
the forest tree, stands on a turtle, also a self
portrait of the artist.
Another artist who brought a metaphysical
dimension to his images was Bombay-based
Prabhakar Barwe. In Blue Lake at the NGMA, the
fish form floating on the surface of the canvas
and its skeletal reflection hint at disjunctive
references from a dreamscape, and the
realization of ultimate reality. K Khosa’s work
is steeped in meta-reality. A Happening is
clearly located in an imagined Kafkaesque world,
in which the real takes on an eerie, unreal
quality.
Madhvi Parekh’s mythic world bristles with folk
and tribal imagery of Gujarat. For Gogi Saroj
Pal, the mythic image is the expression of a
personal mythology. It is linked to the
construct of women in a patriarchal society.
A personal mythology also informs the shadowy
image world of Ganesh Pyne. The experience of
angst pervading the layers of existence harks to
an umbral presence. In the late 60s and early
70s, Jogen Chowdhury brought into the public
domain personal erotic fantasies that burgeoned
with a life of their own in a nocturnal
ambience.
Both Amit Ambalal and Dharmanarayan Dasgupta
introduce a whimsical note into the fantasy
images.
The strong mythical or fantasy content in the
paintings of artists of the 70s and the 80s
continued to be explored by the artists in the
next decade to give a new thrust to visual
language.
|
