There are no pretty faces, no serene faces or even smiling ones, instead the visages in charcoal, are gnarled, tortuous, brutish and shorn of beauty. ‘Faces’, an upcoming exhibition of paintings by B.D. Dethan, holds a mirror to the artiste’s disenchantment with the world around him.
Out of his vast collection of faces, 110 select paintings will be exhibited. However, ‘Faces’, is not a new collection.
“I painted them in 1989. But, only a handful were exhibited then. This current exhibition is due to the insistence of friends who felt it should be displayed. All the images showcased in this exhibition weren’t there in the earlier one.”
‘Faces’, says Dethan, is an extension of his first series of paintings — ‘Kali, Images of our Fractured Times’. “‘Kali’, with its haunting and macabre images, depicted the fading goodness in man. ‘Faces’ emerged right after I did ‘Kali’ in the early 1980s.”
The images for ‘Faces’ are not from memory . “My hand took life as the various faces flowed onto paper. Watching the news, it’s always murder, thieving, deceit, abuse and the like that we hear and see. The world is no longer a safe place; we are now living in a world shorn of love; it’s driven by greed and lust for power. Man is losing his humanity as we fight amongst each other in the name of religion, politics, caste... We are living in a dog-eat-dog world and are going through the ‘Kaliyug’ that our epics speak of. Affected by the frequency of horrific reports, I took up a stick of charcoal and got to work. This is my fight against our current ‘condition.’”
And this is a common thread in nearly all of his works in his 53 years in the field. “The mediums change though. For instance, the images in ‘Kali’ were done in pen and ink. When I grew bored with the medium, I shifted to charcoal, acrylics, oil painting...,” says the artist who has won several State awards.
However, doesn’t he feel his pictures in shades of grey may depress his visitors? “Visitors may complain that the works made them unhappy but I am not bothered by it. I paint for myself. A colourful picture might look pretty on the wall but that is not the primary purpose of art, it needs to touch a chord in your heart,” says Dethan, who adds that his brush has gradually mellowed over the years.
The artist plans to start work on a new collection of paintings. “It will be called ‘Parinamam’ and will feature colourful frames. The theme, however, will remain the same.”
‘Faces’ is on at Suryakanti Art Gallery, Sasthamangalam, from April 5 till April 25.
