Year after year, when artist B.D. Dethan announces his offering for the year, there is the question that follows – wonder what he has chosen as the subject?
This time ‘Nude Complexion-two’ – 2015 makes it crystal clear. But, how different is it from the first edition under the same head?
The artist demarcates the two clearly, “There is a lot of change. In the former, I was attempting to master a technique and the play of light and shade to create a mood in those sepia frames. This time, the subject continues to be the female form, but there is a predicament that is typically the woman’s, as I perceive.”
From the sepia to a blue, the works have transformed into the artist’s commentary of the times. It’s all very well; the woman is assigned the archetype mother status, the source of shakti, the font of all things good. The moot question, according Dethan, is: are we genuinely seeing what we should? He sees her as vulnerable, sidelined, remote, confined, an unseen living being. Does one see how life manifests in the woman’s existence? According to Dethan, it is a big, NO.
The artist is sure these works will linger in our memories not for the manner of handling the human form, but because the consciousness that pervades those 17 frames goes beyond commonplace definitions of beauty and form. The woman under stress and strain, passive and resigned, becomes a metaphor of the times.
The textured surfaces – oil and acrylic on canvas – using his technique of scraping the surface with his finger to achieve the chiaroscuro effect in the tinctured blue create an immediate impact on the onlooker.
How does the artist explain the metamorphosis that his expression has undergone since ‘Kali’, or even ‘Mukhangal’: images that carried a deep sense of foreboding, revulsion, despair and angst? Has he expelled those distortions of existence and started responding to life around with a mellowed empathetic tone?
He laughs, but shakes his head to deny. “I will not be able to repeat ‘Kali’, but to say that catharsis has happened would be far from the truth. There is a change in my expression, but there is a constant restlessness which must find the space. Therefore, the themes I dwell on are different, but undeniably carry a strong undercurrent of the mood of the times.”
Outwardly, the uneasy calm that comes through those unseen faces (in most frames) and the idiom of the body leave little scope to linger on the lure of the physical construct, or for re-interpretation. Artist Dethan’s words, “Change is a must. Encore is not my forte.”
