Paint a fantasy
In his upcoming show, artist Atul Dodiya paints dream conversations between a boy and Mahatma Gandhi
In his upcoming show in Mumbai, artist Atul Dodiya intermingles art and fantasy. His canvases are made of dreams based on fiction. He brings the show titled Bako exists. Imagine after three years. A text-based work consisting of 12 paintings and an installation with nine cabinets, these poetic episodes are based on a Gujarati fiction written by contemporary Gujarati poet Labhshanker Thaker. It talks about a young boy, Bako, who meets Mahatma Gandhi in sleep — a kind of fantasy that invokes childhood memories. The two joke and laugh.
Atul admits that the poet's work instantly fascinated him when he read it about five years ago. He had an idea — he decided to turn them into blackboard paintings using written language and abstract figures. He says, "I have worked with language earlier. And when I read these pieces I realised there are poetic episodes in the book. It's a fantasy, it's the spontaneous questions Bako asks Gandhi that made me realise that the whole episode can be written too in the paintings. I asked my friend Naushil Mehta to translate it in English along with Arundhathi Subramaniam. I thought of writing in a way you do it on blackboards, with images as free floating figures — very abstract, sometimes reading, meditating, running…"
In these blackboard paintings, autobiographical references gradually mingle into a larger creative history. The viewer, when observing them, no more remains an outsider but subconsciously becomes an invisible character involved along with Bako and Bapu in this fantasy. However the Mumbai-born artist is quick to point out that there is no correlation of the figures with the text. "I did not illustrate the text. It's instinctive and has lot of artistic references to the writers and artists I admire. It is, sort of, autobiographical. I see myself in Bako. And I feel one would certainly go back to his childhood when viewing these paitings."
But wouldn't the English writing alienate a certain section of viewers? "We don't understand everything in life or reality, but we appreciate still. There are mysteries and we still accept them. You don't always need a literal meaning. It isn't necessary that the way I paint is the way viewers see it. Their visual interpretation can be different and I prefer it that way," concludes Atul.
In his upcoming show, artist Atul Dodiya paints dream conversations between a boy and Mahatma Gandhi
In his upcoming show in Mumbai, artist Atul Dodiya intermingles art and fantasy. His canvases are made of dreams based on fiction. He brings the show titled Bako exists. Imagine after three years. A text-based work consisting of 12 paintings and an installation with nine cabinets, these poetic episodes are based on a Gujarati fiction written by contemporary Gujarati poet Labhshanker Thaker. It talks about a young boy, Bako, who meets Mahatma Gandhi in sleep — a kind of fantasy that invokes childhood memories. The two joke and laugh.
Atul admits that the poet's work instantly fascinated him when he read it about five years ago. He had an idea — he decided to turn them into blackboard paintings using written language and abstract figures. He says, "I have worked with language earlier. And when I read these pieces I realised there are poetic episodes in the book. It's a fantasy, it's the spontaneous questions Bako asks Gandhi that made me realise that the whole episode can be written too in the paintings. I asked my friend Naushil Mehta to translate it in English along with Arundhathi Subramaniam. I thought of writing in a way you do it on blackboards, with images as free floating figures — very abstract, sometimes reading, meditating, running…"
In these blackboard paintings, autobiographical references gradually mingle into a larger creative history. The viewer, when observing them, no more remains an outsider but subconsciously becomes an invisible character involved along with Bako and Bapu in this fantasy. However the Mumbai-born artist is quick to point out that there is no correlation of the figures with the text. "I did not illustrate the text. It's instinctive and has lot of artistic references to the writers and artists I admire. It is, sort of, autobiographical. I see myself in Bako. And I feel one would certainly go back to his childhood when viewing these paitings."
But wouldn't the English writing alienate a certain section of viewers? "We don't understand everything in life or reality, but we appreciate still. There are mysteries and we still accept them. You don't always need a literal meaning. It isn't necessary that the way I paint is the way viewers see it. Their visual interpretation can be different and I prefer it that way," concludes Atul.
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