Less art, more product

The thing you notice immediately about Surya-kant Lokhande is that he does not mind "explaining" his art, something most artists find exasperating. Lokhande is at his chattiest when helping you understand his work. This may come from his experience of viewers not "getting" his art for so many years. But, like he says, "The struggle may be over."

Certainly, part of his latest exhibition, on at Mumbai's ICIA gallery, alludes to that sense of relief. Titled "The War is Over", it slams the uncertain situations that war leaves behind, but also refers to the predicament of an artist trying to push boundaries. He takes his role as rebel very seriously.

"For the first five shows I did, nothing sold. People couldn't take my use of scrap metal and dirt." Today, he believes, collectors are younger and more accepting. And he, as an artist, just might have lightened up a tad.

That doesn't mean his expression is getting any less subversive. "I like to reject the conventional notion of art by creating art that is less art and more product."

His work is based on digitally enhanced photographs that he then paints over with automobile paint. The reflective surfaces, the advertising hoarding-like quality, the scale, all scream "industrial". Lokhande suggests he might even eschew the use of canvas for aluminium panels the next time around.

Lokhande and his contemporaries like Justin Ponmany, Riyas Komu and T V Santosh, most of whom are products of the J J School of Art, tend to be grouped together and branded avant-garde "" the first of a generation of artists trying to find a unique artistic expression stemming from a truly global influence.

Lokhande would take as a compliment a parallel drawn between them and the evolution of the YBAs (Young British Artists "" Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Tracey Emin) in the '90s whom he so admires for their shock tactics.

Juxtaposed against the thick contours of the images and the hard edges of his media is the softer, trippy illusion he creates. Move closer to the painting and the photograph completely loses detail. In one work, Winston Churchill and Gandhi at the doorway of 10 Downing Street become blobs of colour. "This way my paintings become an amalgam of abstraction and figuration," says Lokhande.

In "The War is Over" he has repainted photographic images from various sources, but discards conventional uses of photography. "For me, a photograph is a tool to look into myself," he explains. "That one's called 'Waiting For Godot'," he says, pointing to a picture of a war victim beside her prosthetic leg.

"In Beckett's play there is so much anticipation, but Godot never arrives. Sometimes hope is like that." A conversation with Lokhande is peppered with references to music, literature and film. "They are all food for my art," says he.

Lokhande is gearing up to show in London but gallerist Tushar Sethi prefers not to mention where yet, because "something really big is planned". Lokhande shrugs, preferring to leave the commerce to others. He, for one, would rather head off to Prithvi theatre.