What is art? What can be regarded as an artwork and what cannot be? Generations of intellectuals have struggled to find concrete answers to these questions. Perhaps, the absence of a rational answer is the answer itself. Art is a composite and heterogeneous world where categories are too strict. Every artist has his own way to express his or her feelings and ideas. Probably the only acceptable definition of art is the one that depicts it as the result of a creative process. Every means is lawful and every place is a good place: all the products should have the same dignity, whether they are in prestigious locations or in the streets of cities. Unfortunately this is not what always happens, and art is often divided into one with capital letters and one with lower case letters. Illustrations and illustrators are often victims of this thinking and seen as minor artists.
This idea slowly crumbles while looking at the exhibition “The Maverick’s Palette”, the first solo show of the illustrator Atanu Roy, being held at the India International Centre till May 23. Although his childhood desire was to become an athlete, drawing was his natural ability and his coach pushed him to empower his artistic skills through his studies. Studying aesthetics and art was the right path to walk on and, as he remembers, “It sort of opened my inner eye and I started to get the hang of art, bit by bit.” He began to draw book covers as a freelance activity and now, four decades later, has illustrated more than hundred books, magazines, advertising campaigns and cartoons.
“I believe, as an illustrator, the target audience matters. The style and the medium follow,” says Roy, explaining the attitude that is clearly visible in the exhibition. The first artworks come from perhaps his biggest assignment: Magical Indian Myths. This book is not for children alone, but for everyone. Anger and violence are present in the drawing that depicts a furious Lord Shiva with his hand in Pushan’s mouth while ripping out his teeth. After gods and myths, the exhibition shows some illustrations for children, in which sweetness and joy are perceptible. Political messages can also be found in the artworks of Roy, especially in the drawings made for an advertising campaign whose slogan was “Let music fill your head”. One of the paintings depicts Osama Bin Laden: his head is represented as a group of colourful musicians while his beard is made of falling soldiers and war scenes, all painted in grey scale. The message behind it is that if one lets music fill one’s head, maybe all bad thoughts will fall off.
Although illustrators often work within the confines of others’ commands, Atanu says he feels “absolutely free while drawing a new illustration.”
Interesting characters, refined details, huge creativity, variety of drawings and colours make it difficult to believe that illustration is a minor art. In the end, an illustrator uses his art to materialise imagination. When we read stories we always imagine them: our mind gives faces, colours and expressions to the characters.
An illustrator does this also, but, unlike ordinary readers he is able to translate his fantasies into drawings.
