A layer of veils

Manish Pushkale is India's newest abstractionist.

He reveres V S Gaitonde, has been mentored by J Swaminathan, has a special relationship with S H Raza, and was brought to Delhi by Manjit Bawa. Yet, Manish Pushkale wasn't born to any special privilege.

If anything, it is his intensity and his intellectualisation that have formed and shaped his ideas as a painter "" and all he thinks about is painting.

His ninth floor, east Delhi studio is flooded with light "" as well it ought, for Pushkale's abstract oeuvre requires him to painfully apply, then strip, oil on and off his canvases, using bits of cloth "" or "towels" as he calls them "" creating anywhere between 10 and 20 layers over two to three months.

He works as a printmaker might, which isn't surprising because he trained at Bharat Bhawan as a one, and it is the etching technique that he's evolved as his particular signature style.

"I developed a language through seeing. I can't work with the geometry or simplicity of Gaitonde, or do a red colour like Bawa can can. Instead, I've created my own colours and intensities."

He also repeats forms constantly on canvas, something that builds up a rhythm around a void. It is this repetitive motif "" "almost like jap" or chanting "" and constant layering that create canvases that are "almost spiritual" for Renu Modu of Gallerie Espace, who has put her shoulder assertively behind Pushkale's.

"He builds his surfaces like a restorer," she says, "and he's big. Every week, I get three or four calls for his works from around the world."

At 32 years, Pushkale has started getting noticed "" already, this year, his works will be shown at the Tate in London, as well as in Munich and Sydney. Part of this push has come from Raza who picked him up for a two-man show in Mumbai, and has also exhibited him in the West.

"Collectors are seeing something new in abstraction," Pushkale says, "and galleries and young collectors are paying them a lot of attention."

Traditionally, abstraction had limited interest "" despite Ram Kumar, Kolte, Laxman Shreshtha and Ganesh Haloi enjoying a very receptive market "" but Pushkale is commited to it and to his style. Nor will he take shortcuts, as a result paintings are rarely prepared in a short time.

In the case of one commission worth Rs 22 lakh for 24 canvases of the Jain tirthankaras, for instance, he has already been working for over a year and will take, perhaps, another three years to complete. "By then, the money will be worth much less," he laughs.

In the short period that he's been painting, Pushkale's price has been going up steadily. Small 2'x2' canvases that began at Rs 10-12,000 a few years ago now fetch Rs 50,000 and more "" if part of it is because of a boom in the industry (as he acknowledges), a large part of it is in recognition of his talent.