theblackyellowarrow: Carving a New Language : Indira Purakayastha Ghosh in Conversation with Rahul Bhattacharya

Publised in Art & Deal Magazine, Jan - Feb 2019

Over the last twenty years Indira Purkayastha has been practicing and evolving a sculptural language deeply engaged with nostalgia, materials and narration. Through these engagements she has developed a personal articulation of contemporaneity which is alternate to the neoliberal aesthetics which largely defines it. Purkayastha brings into focus our continuing engagement with modernism and its dialouge with the evolving contemporaneity in visual culture. Her works carry a memory of our folk cultures and their visual language without being overtly derivative if those traditions. There seems to be inherent connect with folk traditions and their idea of sympathetic magic. Purkayastha’s forms and their silence speak of an artist who is aware of the forces and memories that inform her work..... Rahul Bhattacharya speaks to her, mapping her practice, artistic journey and future directions.

R B: Could you please share with us your experience of practicing sculpture in the period of first five years after your completing your masters.

I P: After completing my Master from Benaras Hindu University, I moved to Kolkata and joined the Lalit Kala Regional Centre. I got the National scholarship (1994-96), then Junior Fellowship (1997-99) from Minis. of HRD. That helped me to stay and work form Kolkata for five years. These years were very important for me. Limitation of life – in bondages of space and time, of nature, of morality, of society, of tradition, of custom and religion – become imminent, which found a vent through my sculpture For a Place.

These five years was the fore step to shaping my experiences. My focus was towards experiments and learnings. I experimented with mediums. I visited villages of Kolkata & Chhattisgarh and arranged small camps. Fenced In & Cage were two of my works made that time.

In 1997-98, I worked with Vivan Sundaram in his large installation, Journey Towards Freedom at the Victoria Memorial, Kolkata.

R B: What were your early artistic inspirations?

I P: As a child I grew up in the foothills of Chhattisgarh playing with adivasi children.

This the experience grew seeds inside me, which grew to always connect me with the notion of purity and a beautiful sustainable relationship with the environment that comes to as an almost primordial language. My love for the subconscious innocence, the playful, and the narrative took roots within me during my childhood.

When I was fourteen I made my first collage and since then my works continues to be inspired by what I find around me. A defunct piece of furniture in my house was the starting point for my imagination in my quest to give visual form to my life experiences.

R B: Could you elaborate on the effect Banaras Hindu University had on shaping you as an artist.

I P: My ideas of outdoor large scale sculptures focused on skill and craftsmanship are inspired from the time I spent in the Faculty of Visual Arts at the Banaras Hindu University. My constant urge to improvise and narrate deep social stories coupled with the ability to conceptualize and craft the images, which manifest through my sculptures, have been imbibed by my guru, the legendary Balbir Singh Katt. My initial creations Gathering, Mob, Queue and Fenced In have been profoundly influenced by the lanes and the ghats of the mythological river Ganges, where I spent years doing sketches and indulging in addas.

R B: This year you have won the first prize at the Lalit Kala Nationals, sometime before that you had a large solo show – can you tell us a bit about your artistic expression in this period of your journey? Especially in terms of you working as a teacher and based in Raipur.

I P: The show Epiphany is a large body of work produced over seven years after I become an art teacher. Teaching exposed me to the power hierarchies of the knowledge industry, but also to the great power of the sub conscious mind and the vast power in children to explore fantasies, and create narratives, which are sincere and playful at the same time. The works showcased in Epiphany contain many such explorations and stories of power, play, inspirations and fantasies. The show is rich container of an adult’s struggle to imbibe to experience and articulate the emotions of children in a representational form.

Being based out of Raipur gives me an edge; it gives me a new imagination of contemporary life which is difficult to access from the centers of Delhi, Mumbai or Kolkata. Chhattisgarh being a tribal state, has its own aesthetic tradition and visual culture, as a sculptor, I feel anchored by it. Being a teacher keeps me connected with children, playfulness and fantasies. The sculpture on which I got the National award this year is Assembly of Angels shows a factory like building representing an institution. One conveyor belt is goes through the building, on which baby ants are entering into the building from one door and coming out from another door of the building like grown up robotic ants.

The sculpture is a manifestation of my involvement with children. Ants have been used as a metaphor for the future denizens. Each one is endowed with differential abilities, but the education system fails to recognize the same. The result is assembly like production. The wheel with the handle is a depiction of systematic control driven by ideology.

R B: You seem to have a special relation with wood.

I P: When I was in my master some defunct pieces of old furniture brought uniqueness to my work. Wood has been preferred over other mediums because of its different colors, textural quality, monochromic impression and its amenability of space division. I started making shapes with wood pieces, pasting it according to the texture and different colors together, which make me very appealing. Still, I feel there are lot of possibility to work with wood, both as a concept and as a medium.

R B: In terms of how you blend your use of medium and concepts...

I P: In my works, medium and concept develope simultaneously, each exploring the other. I have always been interested in giving aesthetic forms to abandoned objects. I work with wood scraps of different colors and different textured, pasting together according to the shapes and concepts, in playful manner. I use metal scraps, wires, metal dust in many of my works. I blend metal to show strong sentiments and assert my feelings. These are the manifestations of the inherent strengths within all of us, which mostly lie dormant. I depicted the character of bird through Bamboo roots. Sometimes neglected parts of woods arouse in me significant thoughts. With gourd somewhere I tried to show lightness and sometimes i have used it to show heaviness too.

R B: Your works seem to have connection with folk and tribal elements.

I P: As a child I grew up in the hills of Chhattisgarh playing with adivasi children. The pure and fresh environment in all its phase took roots in my sensibilities and perceptions were naturalistic. This experience grew seeds inside me, which grew to always connect me with notion of purity and a beautiful and sustainable relationship with the environment that’s come to as an almost primordial language. Thus my works carry a memory of our folk cultures and their visual language.

The travails of pursuing my work in an alienated rural setting give a tribal impression to my sculpture.

Most of the tribal and folk art forms have been confined locally.I envisage spreading my works of art deep into Chhattisgarh in a contemporary manner. My vision is that, through my sculptures the folk art and tribal art forms of Chhattisgarhmay live ina global phenomena.