It’s deafeningly quiet at the Chennai Mathematical Institute (at the SIPCOT IT Park), except for a faint melodious voice that comes from somewhere further. On that particular day, Arun Kashalkar’s Hindustani vocal performance is on at the newly-built auditorium for performing arts, and the event coincides with the unveiling of artist Parvathi Nayar’s 12-piece sculpture titled Music of the Spheres.
Done specifically for the the Institute, the installation, which took Parvathi a year to complete, and her team, a total of 48 hours to install, draws inspiration from the theories of mathematical geniuses such as Johannes Kepler and Pythagoras. “I would hasten to say that I do not understand mathematical formulae but when people talk about how a math problem has a beautiful solution, that interests me. I read about the explosion of black holes, discovery of a star that is 10 times the size of our sun, or the Higgs boson particle... and it makes me ask questions to which there are no answers yet. Who are we? Why are we here?” says Parvathi, who has shown her works at several national/international shows and venues including the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2014), CP Biennale II Indonesia (2005) and the Singapore Art Museum (2006, 2011).
Excerpts from an interview:
Did you have the ambiance in mind while working on the installation?
Madhavan Mukund, Dean of Studies at CMI, was aware that my work uses science and technology. I have been experimenting with the idea of celestial and earthly bodies. My drawings look at things such as those under a microscope, images sent by NASA from space, and so on. This way, they break down the hierarchy of small and big. That apart, I have always liked the idea of the ‘Music of the Spheres’, which was proposed by Pythagoras in 6th century BC. It isn’t actual music… but when the heavenly objects move in space in perfect geometry, they emit a kind of hum.
How did you bring these out in that single work?
I like to think of my drawings as heterotopic, an alternate reality. I intervene as the creator in this reality. I put objects into it. So, if you see, I use glass bangles to represent the rings of Saturn, glass spheres to evoke a planet-like setting, a yellow glass piece which could be the sun rising, and a tiny rabbit toy that reflects the Chinese theory of the rabbit on the moon.
Have you always been interested in cosmology?
I love to look at the night sky using a small telescope, wonder how the navagrahas are connected with the nine planets, or how something minute in some part of the world affects largely in another (butterfly effect). It is interesting to think and speculate and let your imagination go wild without creating boundaries. However, what I do is a very old-fashioned art form inspired by cave paintings, but the images are of our times. Shakespeare always said that art should hold a mirror to society, and I would like to see my art doing that.
There is a 20-foot-high installation done by you at the Mumbai International Airport...
‘A Story of Flight’ was the most challenging work so far. I had to work with architects and CAD designers. It had 31 pieces, each with a different elevation. And the jigsaw was assembled on the day of its launch.
It was quite a challenge, and there were times when I would just stand there, swaying slightly on my feet and thinking that I am going to die for my art. In fact, each time I get involved with a project, I feel that it will be my swansong. After the Kochi Biennale, I thought ‘this is it, I have shown at a biennale, I should quit now.’ Then the next project comes. (She was selected to be part of B70, the historical 70th anniversary birthday show of Amitabh Bachchan in Mumbai, and her works have been collected by institutions such as the Singapore Art Museum, BMW, HCL, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, among others).
But you always knew you would be an artist.
My mother paints, my grandmother and great grandfather used to paint as well. All of them did it as a hobby. But it meant that there was always art material around. All through my schooling and college — in Delhi, Kerala, Chennai — I loved to doodle, and paint.
I worked with videos, photographs and installations, and was inspired by the works of Rabindranath Tagore, Jamini Roy, Da Vinci, Ravi Varma (whose nephew taught her mother). Later, I went to London to do my Masters in Fine Art (from Central St Martins College of Art and Design, London), and it opened me up to a new world. I saw that artists simply showed their works, without any hesitation. And I returned to what I was doing in India, but with a very different perspective.
You just returned from a residency in France, and were part of the group shows L’Attrape Feu there, and India Art Fair in Delhi. Work keeps you constantly on the move...
I also recently went to Germany as part of Goethe Institut’s Water Management project, which is set to happen sometime next year. But I don’t travel as much as I would like to.
Also, it is a constant struggle to juggle work and personal life. I am a single mother to an almost seven-year-old, so I have engineered my life such that my studio is near her school. Otherwise, I am constantly thinking, and jotting down ideas on my phone.
And, when in studio, I work with a single-minded focus, with Carnatic, heavy metal or jazz music in the background... sometimes, even BBC podcasts.
