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Portraits of Nature

Skilful brushstrokes One of Yashwant Shirwadkar’s works

Mumbai-based Yashwant Shirwadkar is an artist whose preferred mode of working is realism. His simple vision and spontaneity are not only charming but also lend dignity to his Naturescapes, devoted as he is to recreating his experiences on canvas with traditional tools and techniques such as brush or palette knife, and oil or acrylics.

Thematically his works are landscapes, predominantly depicting North India. Having satiated his aesthetic sensibility with the sights, colours and textures there, Yashwant has journeyed to the South in an attempt to capture the idyllic settings of the State of Kerala.

A narrow strip of land on the western coast, Kerala evokes not only the serendipity of its coconut groves, spice and tea estates, but also configures a kaleidoscopic palette with its performing arts culture and ritualistic traditions.

Yashwant’s predilection is only towards the articulation of Nature in his works and not towards the cultural signifiers that have such a strong presence in Kerala. His emotional and sensitive responses, which intervene through his realistic style, allow recognisable landscapes, vistas or objects to adhere to his authoritative artistic standards.

ith facility of hand, he recreates the textures of the verdant ambience of rural Kerala.

In this series, Yashwant attempts to capture the magic of house boats, the contemplative mood of tropical groves, the regional flavour of its architecture (the sloping, tiled roofs, the ubiquitous pyramidal gopuram of a temple), and the meditative silence of serene waters. His canvases recreate the iconic majesty of the boats, resplendently moored on the placid backwaters with their artistically knitted and knotted thatched roofs, the quiet dignity of the architecture or the ubiquitous fishing nets at Kochi, that create a dynamic pattern with their billowing curves enhanced by the matted yellow of the nets.

These are not impressionistic works capturing a particular evanescent moment of time or season; rather they are deliberate, conscious and premeditated to create portraits of Nature and manmade designs. Humanity hardly features in his works, which are impressionistically rendered.

Nevertheless it is to his credit that these canvases are painstakingly and skilfully created with verisimilitude. Every brushstroke is contemplated and every tone and shade intelligently worked out to recreate the pristine nature of the land.

His works cannot be described as poetic, since a calculated structure becomes evident, perhaps the consequence of his use of the palette knife.

Undeniably, his works show sensitivity to material, texture and pattern through colours that make his oeuvre vibrate with charming warmth.

In viewing his works, the mental and perceptual faculties are not strained, the viewer relates in a relaxed manner to the ordinary, the mundane, the pedestrian, and the quotidian, establishing links of identity with his own experiential reality.

The exhibition is on at Vinnyasa Premier Art Gallery until July 30.

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