 "<b>Kishore Singh</b>: Staunchly 'Indian'")
What do you do when you are ambivalent about an artist’s work you know to be a serious contender for national recognition? I have been seeing V Ramesh’s work for a few years and have reacted to it with a mix of admiration and apprehension. He seems an oxymoron in today’s time when a younger, edgier and more global language is the preferred currency in art circles. His chosen mode of expression is realistic, sometimes consisting of a stark painted image that resembles a hyper-real photograph, a part of a larger whole that throws it into sharp relief. He infers abstract poets, or allegorical anecdotes, literary clues that are unequivocally Indian, and therefore a scholarly anachronism in an age of instant messaging and social media.
Ramesh, for those who came in late, was most recently honoured with a retrospective at National Gallery of Modern Art in Bengaluru — a first for a practicing artist in that city — following which his work was exhibited at American University Museum’s Katzen Arts Center. A student of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda, and a teacher at the Department of Fine Arts, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, he is one of few artist-teachers in the country today.
Of his skill as an artist, there can be no doubt — he is probably among the more brilliant draughtsman of his generation. His ability to render an object realistically harks back to an artist’s rigorous training that today seems almost redundant and likely to blip out altogether. This realism is also the reason for our sense of discomfort, especially since it is detached from a context, bringing into focus an alluded segment away from the whole. I am reminded of a flower garland he had painted, which he associated with Aandal, an 8th century Tamil mystic and the only female among 12 Alvar saints. For me, it was a symbol of several other things — the deification of often flawed political leaders, a badge of marriage, a chronicle of death.
V Ramesh’s Untitled, watercolour and gouache on paper, 18 x 24 inches
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Therefore, when he returns next month with an exhibition in New Delhi, the question that comes to mind is how to read his recent works. Are they literal translations of philosophical texts again, or do they stand alone on their own aesthetic merit? The bushel of plantains within a rib cage is easy enough to read as a metaphor of greed in our times, whatever his own scholarly reference, but what is one to make of his branches of adeniums, the stunted coconut sapling, plant stems twisting in a pot, or spilled pomegranate seeds and its splatter of juice? On the face of it, these watercolour and gouache paintings are impactful enough to catch our eye, but knowing they are Ramesh’s work increases our anxiety — are we intellectual enough to read the allusions he builds into them, not directly on the surface but hidden within the work? Would it be shallow to accept or reject them on the basis of their beauty without being bothered about their message?
Whatever our vacillation with regard to his practice, there is no doubt he is highly regarded within a small circle of collectors for his ability to remain staunchly “Indian” at one level, as much to abstain from trends and fads which he continues to flout through his work. Perhaps as a result, he does not feature in the secondary market or at at auctions, which makes it difficult to establish market benchmarks for his price, even as he remains an attractive proposition for the potential collector confident enough to invest in an artist who has not compromised on his position or his art.
Kishore Singh is a Delhi-based writer and art critic. These views are personal and do not reflect those of the organisation with which he is associated