Curator's Note: Friendly Strangers

Empty Spaces have the most energy fields than anything else in the universe; and all the object, matter, particles we know, constitute just ten percent of the universe....or even less. The fascination for the dark matter and empty spaces…and more importantly the floating energy fields within is what binds Ajay Narayan and Shridhar Iyer together. This engagement allows me to curatorially put together two artists who are stylistically poles apart. Yet, inspite of the stylistic difference, Shridhar and Ajay have worked together in collaboration in terms of sharing of ideas and space.

In a strict sense this is not a ‘two man show’. Friendly Strangers is a essentially Ajay Narayan solo with Shridhar Iyer giving it support. Shridhar has been celebrating a quiet journey of discovering a new medium, and is seeding a very strong series. Ajay on the other hand is maturing within his early style. One is more focused on matter one more on energy. Yet together they are engaged in re-presenting the unknown. The unknown that is falling out of fashion as the world becomes more material obsessed and Man lands on Mars.   

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From the series Journey through Images and Objects (Yog Maya) Shridhar Iyer,  Wood Straw and Fishing Net 32"  x  36" . 

From within the gharana of contemporary abstraction from Bharat Bhavan, Shridhar Iyer has been exploring the unknown energy and force of the Universe primarily through the medium of painting and drawing. Yet, even within the gharana Iyer is a break…a self-taught burst of energy. Highly experimental in life and work, Iyer has often made forays into installation based art practices, but it is in the last one and a half month, working in NIV center's basement studio, the artist has for the first time produced a body of work that shows a sustained engagement with alternative mediums and new sculpture. 

Using mediums like coconut tree, fishing nets, cloth and wood straw,  dye, Iyer continues his engagement with the vast unknown...this time focusing on the energy fields that occupy the spaces between us and our known objects. He combines this representational quest with the love for the organic and the perishable. The artist has pledged himself to a spiritual connection with the universe, for him all the energy fields surrounding us are eternal, omnipresent, powerful, ethereal and friendly.In this series Journey through Images and Object (Yog Maya)  we will get a first look at a new and very important body of work in the context of sculptural abstraction.  

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Ajay Narayan,
Reflection of space on the surface of sea,

Acrylic on canvas

Ajay Narayan has been painting to invoke concealed, obscure descriptions of the visible world. His recent works are an engagement with the vastness of space, the incomprehensible eternal dark matter within which planets, stars and galaxies float.  This series echo this inquiries into the universe through gazing at the night sky and encountering its sublime.

His painted canvasses and fiberglass sculptures capture this beauty...dwelling on the floating objects through the gaze of friendship, and his love for colour and impasto.

There is a love for the edgy zone between the decorative and the aesthetic/ synthetic and the eternally natural.  Living inside an urban environment it becomes more important to look at the great eternity.    

Memories of growing up with Chinmoy

My library work was over, and we often caught up for tea and cigarettes. Then one evening Chinmoy was busy: after weeks of waiting the department had just received some stone. With itching hands he began drawing on the stone... a skull appeared… rendered in bold lines with piece of brick.

It was a rough piece of marble... people who have grown up in art colleges will know that many survive on free loads of quarry rejects. It had grains and cracks all over... the sun was setting as Chinmoy started carving into that piece of stone.... and I no memory of how long it really took Chinmoy to finish carving the sculpture. Every evening after classes… or just on some lazy afternoons we would be sitting, sharing cigarettes, talking, as Chinmoy carved way... he even let me try my hand at carving it… careful to let me chip off a block only where the stone was to be broken and discarded… and not a part of the main sculpture... yet with very watchful eyes, because the stone had deep grain lines running through large portions... one false chip and it was liable to break.

By then I had already fallen in love with how he understood the medium of sculpture, how, based in academic understanding of material and form, he was able to conjure up an extremely contemporary visuality. So I was eager... waiting to see Chinmoy finish the work.





Later, months later, I found myself in Ellora. Coming from an academic institution that that almost hyper-specialized in medieval sculpture and architecture, we spent days in Elllora… waking up every morning... discussing every ground plan, every motif... every sculpture... and it was there that I learnt that I can only understand the sculptor’s understanding of the human form, and know the quality of carving by touching the sculpture.

By the time I came back Chinmoy had received a BFA in sculpture. His final piece was a beautiful, daring rendition of the skull. Standing in front of the piece, I could not resist my urge to touch it. At the very first touch I fell in love completely. As the hand traveled to the back of the skull--feeling the subtle invisible modulations--I could feel the sheer joy the artist had taken to sculpt the form. If you closed your hand and simply touched the back of the piece, you’dyou would know that it was a skull.

Eventually, as it always happens, time passed. As we grew up, authorship, form , even carving became unfashionable words. Much later, after college, when we were all floating and trying to find some ground beneath our feet, I learnt that the work had been acquired by the prestigious collection of Anupam Poddar (Devi Art Foundation was yet to be conceived though the collection was already viewed as a benchmark for emerging ‘new art)’. It gave us all an impetus, chiseled us into a swing of high spirits. We quickly forgot the far off cities and the occupation called survival.

Then again, as it always happens... time passed again. By now I was in Delhi, writing and editing, and Chinmoy was gaining recognition as one of the best talents emerging out in contemporary Indian art. The artist was visiting Delhi, to see his work on display.. On that visit I traveled with Chinmoy to see the collection, where I met old friends such as the skull that I myself had a hand in.

As I stood in front of the skull after so many years, I could not resist the urge... I reached out and touched the skull. I was glad to know that all that memory was not just fantasy... that the cold marble touching my hands still had the same effect. Cold, but polite stares from the staff made me realize that my touch was no more welcome. I mumbled an apology, smiled and went outside to smoke a cigarette...

originally published in  http://www.thefuschiatree.com

untitled-letter

now that the letter is written
i will have to wait
anticipation makes one fonder
of memories and dystopia
home is when the heart is

now that the letter is written
i still cannot conclude
hope lingers where the heart is
and how can the letter be written
home is where the heart is

learning to fly and other stories
perhaps stories of utopia
perhaps of restlessness and doing nothing
i will have to  wait
sometimes heart is where the home is,