In the first of a series of public art events, Apparao Galleries with Sandy’s hosted dancer, poet and journalist Tishani Doshi and painter, poet and sculptor George K. in Creativity And Coffee .
Point Éphémère in Paris located in an old warehouse combines an artists’ retreat and hosts programmes. “Intellectuals, artists, philosophers, social workers and people of varied disciplines come together,” describes George. “Throw this jumbled body together, explore each other and find your feet. This is the idea behind Creativity and Coffee.”
When two artists meet on a platform, our instant inclination is to find commonalities and differences. Both are poets and both met an artiste who changed their course of their lives. It was Chandralekha who led to Tishani adding dance to her repertoire and who inspired George to paint. “When I first met George,” says Tishani, with a laugh, “he was a chartered accountant. Next thing I knew, he was making paintings.”
Body of expression
For both, the human body is a terrain of expression. George is famously known for his exquisitely rendered sculptures of Aravanis — transgenders. Tishani Doshi studied the art of dance under Chandralekha, continuing as a lead dancer in the troupe in latter years.
They explore landscape and memory through poetry and painting. Tishani reads her poems Lesson In Stillness and Memory Of Wales , connecting Dali’s Persistence Of Memory . “I discovered my mother as a child through every visit in summer to my grandmother’s place in Wales.” This intrinsic tryst with landscape and human relationship is fundamental to identity, Tishani reveals. We are all able to find our mother’s childhood through a relationship with place. What does landscape mean to you?” asks Tishani. George says, “The first thing that hits me is the devastation and damage we have caused — mining, brick and mortar.” He continues, quoting from Thoreau, “It is in vain to dream of a wilderness distant from ourselves…” and then elucidates, “The design that we make is evolved from the memory and culture of what we have learned to accept. We are, each of us, wired to see a certain way.”
George refers to Simon Schama’s Landscape And Memory , in that, human beings have been more concerned with measurement, not memory in our shaping of land. Landscape, as George outlines, comes from Land and scape originating from “ship” or “shaft” associated with shape and this has been a fundamental human concern — how to shape the land to yield benefits — aesthetic or material. Memory in itself is a landscape as all of what we perceive is stored in our mind and we see selectively.
“We cannot rely on memory. It is different at different times,” says Tishani. One of her earliest memories was of her getting her ears pierced. She remembers a dusty street in Gujarat, and the jab of pain when the goldsmith used a needle. He gave her a gift, a pair of silver scissors in a pouch for going through the ordeal. “But when I told my mother about this, she said we never went to Gujarat, the jeweller used a gun not a needle. I had transformed a painful memory by imagining something to replace it. Perhaps that is why I am a fiction writer!”
The big impact For George, a tsunami survivor, it was the moment before which remains as an impact. “I remember the blinding sun, and some 24 of us standing there and then we were just four.” The sun and the colour of light made a deep impression on George, because he is a painter and photographer, he feels, “Memory changes our perception of place.”
“Many writers, no matter where they were, wrote about the places which had strong associations for them. Joyce wrote about Dublin, Hemingway about America. It seems writers carry the landscape within their bodies wherever they go,” says Tishani. “When I went back to my old school, I was terrified to find it much smaller than I expected.” This is the largesse of memory, says Tishani and that the new memory can be more powerful than the older one. Memory always returns to place. “I always remember Chandralekha standing at her Elliot Beach house gate with her white hair,” recalls Tishani, noting that death does not erase that expectancy of seeing that striking image of her mentor every time she returns.
All of George’s paintings at Sandy’s — Playing Fields / In Search Of Escape — are on handmade paper with acrylic paints, glimpses of Nature in outlines and colours. They start with more defined shapes and forms of trees and foliage but start to disappear into abstract shapes. As I drink my coffee, the mini landscape of a white swirl in the pattern of a leaf floating disappears. Through continual consumption, we obliterate landscapes. Yet, I store the memory of the full cup. Memory preserves the landscape in an image. If we allow, perhaps memory could shape the land, not man.
