“But it is also true that human beings possess absolute dimensions for other human beings. If a man walks away from me, he does not seem to grow smaller, but his qualities seem rather to condense while his ‘bearing’ remains intact. If he draws near to me, he does not grow larger, but his qualities open out.”Jean-Paul Sartre
Where do the ordinary women and men find their places? Mostly in corners of a newspaper, their occupations, preoccupations, labours or leisure become a part of the ignored everyday. I start from the ordinary life, objects or people. l begin from the perceptible, but the specified contours are lost soon. A person present in a particular place goes beyond the recognized roles assigned or inscribed to them, it could be that which it is, but it could also be that it is not. I look at the people, they are in a particular time and in a particular moment, they trigger certain emotions and they disappear, sometimes they return as reminders of a time remembered again. It is like the piece of music which I carried long after it was heard no more. The idea of Charvana in Indian aesthetics mentions the instance of recalling what you liked, it can be a moment of happiness or shock and hurt too. Sometimes, it is the indifference that I use in my paintings, indifference which is shown often regarding the pain of others, the situatedness of others.
The apparently glossy celebratory images often tell of silent despairs: a favourite actress with a runny nose, of acts of reverence and how suffocating they can be. Many times, loneliness shapes the way we see things: of how leftovers speak of passing time and its effect, the monotony of a job done for the pleasure of others, how on reaching destinations expectations are not met and the unexpected departure of friends. The doubts about what appears and what is beyond is an endearing quest; if I am looking at the animals in the zoo, are they also looking back and thinking about me? Do our conditions connect? Do small stories of power matter? Like the strength and power of the child to help an ant in a summer holiday.
I explore all possible processes of painting, sometimes there are different ways of rendering all together on the same plane, there is a tension that I am fond of. The tones and colours, marks and pigments are not calibrated. How I begin and how the image changes evoke the rabbit and the duck question of flesh or paint. Casein as a medium offers the elusiveness and the filmic to the images. My conviction exists in all modes of the rich tradition of painting, like the mural, easel and miniatures. Painting as an act and canvas as a surface holding the erasures, applications and the very physical presences of the gesture and labour holds my attention as a painter. The long inheritance of painting excites me with newer discoveries each time, sources are plenty: from existing images of the past and the visceral responses to the things that happen. As a painter who always works in a studio and is exposed mostly to reproductions, the visit to the museums in London last year where I saw the original paintings with the brilliance of colours and scales was amazing. This has again opened up a plethora of struggles as a painter with new discoveries of hues and heights. In this 'hyper interesting time' when the gadgets keep punctuating the moments of our everyday life, I look at things which are muted, which seem to pass silently, slowly with their seemingly small struggles.
- Mahesh Baliga
