When You Push

When you push
and it does not move;
Then you feel like pushing harder.
When you push harder
and it does move;
Then you feel like pushing more.
When you push more
and it does not move;
Then you feel like pushing harder.

Space, anger, victory, defeat...
all become one.
Push is a hard word
Easier to pull gently than to push softly.

When you push
and it does not move;
Then you feel like pushing harder.
When you pull or hug
and it does not move;
Will you do it (again) softer?
Same thing with small differences
create different journeys for the soul. 

A Short Note on Gulam Mohammed Sheikh's 'Art and Art History'

Art and Art History | Gouache | 30 x 40 cm | 1996 |

Courtesy. Shirish Panchal Collection. 

As a critical post modern miniaturist, Sheikh has been a member of the avant-garde who reinvented the idea of narrative for Contemporary Indian Art. The title of the work reminds one of Binod Behari Mukherjee’s murals, reflecting a continuity of thought around art, its history and its pedagogy. Yet in the hands of Binod Behari’s student this analogy of discipline and landscape becomes restless and radical. There are hints of deep, yet almost untraceable shadows of surrealist iconography that anticipates a dystopia. My eyes can see Beauty enshrined and protected, yet being washed away by storm and inferno. Art and its history are man made, yet the universe weeps when art dies. But it never dies, always survives the storm.

The handling of material is starling. Gouache as medium has defined by its opaque character. Sheik transforms it, challenging gouache to become water colour. These eclectic expectations from medium challenge our notions regarding relationships between the physical and the conceptual.