While most artists establish a quintessential style to their work and tend to remain in that groove thereon, others like Shakti Maira create works that are so different from each other that when put together, it may look like a group show.
The intimate engagement between Maira's mind and hands to create art is showcased at a new exhibition "Formed Resonance" here, where the sensibility, experience and skill of the artist to create and manifest directly, triumphs over the mechanicality of computers and 3-D printers.
"These days handmade art is being pushed back by conceptualism, installations and the use of computers and 3-D printers.
"Am I alone in feeling that this is resulting in the loss of precious qualities, like the integration of our sensory, emotional and intellectual capacities, and the simple (or even profound) experiences of beauty that can come through the arts?" the artist questions.
The show has been broadly divided into four sections of drawings: a set of 'Figure Drawings' from his time in New Hampshire, a small suite of ink drawings and paintings titled 'Mother India and Her Sons' made while the Babri Masjid tensions were roiling in the country, a few charcoal drawings that celebrate music and singing, and lastly, a recent group of drawings called 'The Origin of Form'.
Talking about his 'Babri Masjid' series, Maira said that the works were a manifestation of his sadness over "what India's sons were doing to a pluralistic nation".
The exhibition is rounded off with a set of heads (sculptures) from 'The Sangha', and four groupings of 'The Sufis', which play on the idea of inherent multiplicity and oneness.
Being an artist who chooses to express his creativity by striking out in new directions with whatever forms resonate with his changing concerns and evolving passions, Maira's materials and styles move with, and respond to, his own life journey.
Sharing his first encounter with wood carvings, he spoke about the time when two years ago on a walk in Dalhousie, a half-burnt log caught his eye.
"It was black, mysterious and oddly powerful. In the fading evening light, it evoked the goddess Kali. I dragged it back and thus began a new body of work - wood carvings," he said.
He went about the process without the help of power tools, and carved pieces of wood using a saw, a mallet, chisels, rasps, files, sandpaper, and fire, allowing the form to come from the medium itself.
"It was a time in my life when I needed to do slow, hard, rhythmic work. What emerged out of the carving process were several versions of the Kali presence, some half-man half-woman forms, heads that have a primal African-Indian tribal energy. And a few others - some abstracts, and my signature sadhus," he said.
The exhibition that brings together a range of his three-dimensional and two-dimensional works, is underway at India International Centre here and is set to continue till March 12.
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