A Mould Out Of Clouds, An Ode To The Caves

When clouds roll along the firmament up above the broad river in Benares where he lives, Sunil Kumar initiates work on what could end up as his next sculpture in bronze. Just as the white droplets suspended in the atmosphere won’t give a clue to how they are going to shape up if at all, the young artist from the Gangetic plains will sometimes be unsure about the result of his aesthetic enterprise.

“You have to keep working even if you perhaps fail in progressing or completing the endeavour,” the 36-year-old from Patna says, standing close to his latest sculpture that is on display at the Lalit Kala Akademi (LKA) in Delhi. As many as 15 of Kumar’s works, done over the past 12 years, are part of an ongoing exhibition at the gallery of the autonomous organisation run by the government of India.

Kumar, who is associated with the Faculty of Visual Arts at Benares Hindu University (BHU) in eastern Uttar Pradesh, believes in constant practice, no matter if a project fails to finish or even take off. “Occasionally, I decide to do a work with no definite idea in mind. I watch the sky outside my room and notice the clouds…shapeless and slow-moving. After a while, they settle—and form beautiful patterns. It’s a good sign for me, a definite tip to go ahead,” notes the artist, whose set of works at the March 24-30 LKA event is simply titled ‘Bronze Sculptures 2017’.

In contrast with the generally bustling Benares, Kumar’s sculptures radiate an air of peace. That way, he has lent the LKA’s ground-floor corridor an element of tranquility typical of the Buddhist site of Sarnath on the other side of the Ganga in Benares. Not surprising, thus, that quite a few of his works at the Akademi bear the calmness of Gautama the ascetic, whose teachings gave birth to a religion of non-violence.

An end-2016 work by Kumar of a Hindu temple is dense with reposefulness. It’s an abstract take on a Lord Shiva sanctorum, with a hint at the set-up that permits holy water to ooze down on to the linga in drops. “It always fascinates me to watch people going for their puja,” notes Kumar, who has done his bachelors and masters in fine arts from the College of Arts and Crafts, Lucknow University. “The devotional ways of each of them vary. It’s such a private act done in public.”

For Kumar, each work on the sculpture—the LKA show also features some of them done in aluminium and mixed media—takes three to four months from conception to conclusion. “It’s such a multi-stage process, you know. One has to first shape it up in clay, then mould it in plaster and later, at the apt phase, apply wax. The furnace work warrants extreme care and skill,” he notes.

That level of extreme patience is what another young artist at a simultaneous LKA show, too, tacitly highlights. Abhijit Pathak also graduated from BHU—in painting, before he did his masters from Jamia Milia Islamia at Delhi, where he has been living over the past nine years. Like Kumar, this 30-year-old is also a native of Bihar—his formative years were spent in Bihta and Arrah, not far from the state’s capital.

As for his newest work, it’s in wood—featuring relief patterns with painstaking outlines from prolonged observation. “That’s an ode to the ancient paintings at the Ajanta and Ellora caves (of west-central India),” shrugs Pathak about the work figuring in his LKA exhibition ‘Mosaic of Mysteries’. “I have also used tools of construction to burn the wood and give it an aged look.”

Art scholar Uma Nair, who is the curator of the March 24-30 show, says Pathak’s big-canvas works are reflective of an energy of movement latent within the textures of modern abstract landscape paintings. “He takes tuition and conducts workshops to save money to buy canvasses and paints,” she adds about the artist, who won the Lalit Kala national award in 2010. On his part, Pathak says his LKA works seem to show a tendency to burst from a centre point. “That is why I chose to jump in front of my painting when asked to be featured in a photo,” he adds, cryptically.

The artist was brought up in a family that has musicians. His elder brother, Ranjit Pathak, plays the tabla—an instrument that caught Abhijit’s fancy as well, prompting him to take classes in playing it (he even has a diploma in music). Simultaneously, the youngster showed a flair in visual arts, but wasn’t sure which path he should take in the future. Then, in 2000, a sight at Patna railway station turned out be decisive for Pathak. “At the platform, I saw art students sketching. In a matter of minutes, they conjured up images with great vision and clarity. It was magical. I knew my time has come to learn painting and focus on nothing else.”

After his BHU course, in his initial Delhi days, Pathak showed his early works to veteran artist Vivan Sundaram. “He dubbed them as bekaar (useless), and stuck in the 1960s,” he recalls. “I gradually sensed that art is not about banaana (making), but hona—to have it inside you. That message inspired me to recharge myself.” Pathak then began touring vibrant heritage spots like Chandni Chowk in the capital and the Khajuraho shrines in Madhya Pradesh. They enriched his views about cityscapes, some of which are at sight in the LKA exhibition.

Both Kumar and Pathak have done group shows and participated in art workshops.