Art & Poetry: A NOVEL EXPERIENCE

PARIKRAMA

While I have been handling event listings for so many years, I have not had much experience in seeing art shows and the like. The event that I went to last evening was absolutely novel to me and believe me, it was a mind-blowing experience.

Gallery Pradarshak is celebrating their 17th anniversary by holding exhibitions of 17 different artists over 17 days from June 6 to 24, 2011.

Artist Sanjay Kumar with his mixed media work on display

Yesterday, June 15, saw the display of artworks by artist Sanjay Kumar. There was also a poetry reading session by the same artist. Yeah, the man writes poetry as well, in Hindi.

Hailing from Patna and with a BFA degree from the university there, Sanjay Kumar has been living in Mumbai since 1993. He has no less than 30 years of art experience. He has had five solo shows so far, the last one being at Tao Art Gallery in 2009.

One more from Lord Buddha series

The artist does an in-depth study of his subjects before setting to work in great detail in mixed medium. While earlier he had worked on subjects such as ‘Kaali’ and ‘Shiva’, the latest batch of figurative works in mixed media at Pradarshak are all about Lord Buddha. The detailing in ink & conte (that’s a type of charcoal stick for ‘anaadis’ like me) is nothing short of amazing.

The Book published by Tao Art Gallery

While Sanjay Kumar is a full-time artist, he writes poetry whenever inspiration strikes him. Poems just spring out of him at different times in his life, following no fixed pattern. I don’t understand poetry. Yeah, I love listening to songs and can well relate to the lyrics by Bharatiyaar, Vaali and Kannadaasan in Tamil while I love those written by Gulzar & Javed Akhtar in Hindi. But reading poetry in whichever language is just not me.

Sanjay Kumar reading poetry from his book

Yesterday evening, listening to Sanjay Kumar reading poetry from his book “लो मैं झूठ लिखता हूँ!” was a soul-stirring experience. He read about 20 poems and also explained each circumstance under which he had given birth to every poem. Beautiful! 

Pages from the book designed by Rajesh Pullarwar

There was this poem that had been inspired by a thought shared by the artist’s friend, Mr. Rajesh Pullarwar. Mr. Pullarwar explained it himself. “When you are very angry, fill a mud pot with a colour powder of your choice, any colour that represents anger to you. Then break it by smashing it on the ground. Seeing the smashed pot with the colour powder spread around in an unplanned pattern takes away the anger.” A lovely way to ‘lose’ your temper, I thought. Incidentally, it was Rajesh Pullarwar who designed the book of poetry written by Sanjay Kumar. I am sharing some of the photos that I captured of the book – all the backgrounds were taken from different angles of Sanjay’s art studio. You have to see it to believe it.

Some more pages. Yeah, that's the artist on the right

Some of Sanjay Kumar’s works decorate the walls of the plush home ‘Antilia’ belonging to Mukesh Ambani. The artist believes in doing his bit to society and has donated a print machine to Patna College of Art.

I sincerely thank Ms. Savitha Hira, owner of Gallery Pradarshak, for this lovely evening. Savitha has been an e-friend since Mumbai Mirror days and I got to meet her for the first time after 6 years. :)