The political canvas

Veer Munshi's canvases voice his concern on socio-political issues.

Imprints of a childhood spent in Kashmir have found place on his canvas "" the beauty of the landscape, as well as its endless political and social turmoil.

He dabbled with colours as a child until 1976, when he ran away to study Fine Art at MS University in Baroda for six years, "And that's where my whole mannerism as an artist was built, before that it was just pretty pictures," says Veer Munshi.

"Socio-political and semi-realist," as he describes them, Veer's works are strong statements of issues, events, people. "My experience in Kashmir triggered it," he says.

His first exhibition was on human rights, in 1992, after which he was even called to Geneva for a presentation on the subject by a United Nations sub-commission.

He has a streak of activism in him, he says, to which he "reacts indirectly", expressing it through his canvas. Munshi absorbs incendiary issues and will research his subjects till the build-up becomes like a dam, with the need to "burst out".

"It takes your fill "" in the head, heart and soul" and when he does finish his canvas, "it's a release", he says.

But there has to be a balance between the concept and the language, and that's where the artist strikes a balance. Since the concepts are full of allusion, there are always chances that the canvas might be cluttered.

"The concept triggers a work, but finally it diminishes as the language and narrative take over "" and if it is done well it becomes a good work of art," says Munshi. "The strength of a good work of art is incredible, it survives beyond the artist," he adds.

Oils are his first love, though he does paint using acrylics, watercolours or charcoal. The colours are bright and Munshi likes to experiment with whites. One of his "dear works" is a man sitting on a commode, (depicting a "place of self-contemplation") "" one of his first, which he has still not parted with.

Occasionally, when he does wooden or fibre sculptures, they again reflect the world's changing socio-political dynamic. In a wooden signature photograph's sculpture titled "Burial 2000", one man's many faces in many garbs "" as an exile, secessionist, extremist, militant "" are pasted under a coffin covered with bright flowers.

A painting should speak for itself and that's what Munshi's attempts are "" "figurative, detailed with narrative". He acknowledges his conceptuality to the Baroda School, and to Kashmir. Since he started, his works have reflected his environs along with the issues "related with time", where he has "evolved a language of expression".

In some of his recent works, he played with the signs of the zodiac, weaving personalities and broadening it to a wider terrain. So, for instance, the Aquarian Darwin's theory of evolution extended to today's consumerism and global terrorism; and Capricornians Vajpayee and Jinnah were depicted along with the cross on which Christ died, against a background of several symbols used by political parties.

You see Munshi in his paintings too; particularly personal is "Never able to land", where he, as the body of an aeroplane, looks upon a Munshi reclining with a book on Picasso and dreaming: "You condition yourself to goals, keep shifting them, keep dreaming and finally are never able to land."

Gallerist Sunaina Anand feels that Munshi weaves sensitivity with narration well. "He is not in a hurry, absorbs much around him and does important and good reference work, all unaware and genuine and not at all pushed by market trends." Munshi's works have seen "a steady and upward trend", Anand says. No doubt his works are adding to history, and, predicts Anand, "Artists like him are going to be referred to in the future."