Encountering Nadees Prabou’s paintings at a show in Chennai some years back, Viji Nagashwaran was completely enthralled. “I loved his work! They were wonderful watercolours.” Prabou, a Puducherry-based artist, is a graduate of the Pondicherry College of Fine Arts, and Nagashwaran was debating a one-man show of his work at Vinnyasa. Then, a personal collection of prints of masters M.F. Husain, S.H. Raza and Manjit Bawa came up for sale and Viji was excited about a new idea. “Why not throw open the entire gallery for a combined show?” Bridging the Gap: Iconic Prints to Popular Acrylics celebrates this wide offering in one space.
Husain promoted serigraphs ardently, giving silk-screen printing with ink-blocking stencils a place of pride. Editions from the 80s and 90s, all signed by Husain, include the series from Mother Teresa, the British Raj and Ashoka. His much-loved depictions of horses, both in Indian and Chinese styles, are also part of this show. From the British Raj, there is an enchanting print of a seated king, his queen standing beside with her arm protectively across him; their young son is close-by too. A mysterious nymph with wings, holding a creature, flies above. Images such as these call for an inquiry into past times, the tensions between royal families and colonial impositions.
A sense of movement is inherent to many of Husain’s works — Ganesha appears playfully tossing the sun; horses canter and prance unusually composed in a vertical frame. Emotions are aroused as Ashoka thrusts his sword’s tip into a hapless horse in a painting bathed in red. In his radical style, Husain characterises Mother Teresa through her garb — the simple sari with a blue border, a shell without her bodily presence. Varied settings with children, women and animals are picturised.
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Manjit Bawa’s lustrous forms, suavely rendered in smooth tonalities with their surrealistic overtures, are fascinating explorations. In his early painting ‘Purple Piper’, Krishna was painted in purples and yellows. Bawa’s hunter balloons out with knife in hand, as if in a dance to kill a bird. The show has three Raza’s—two are prints and one a tapestry. His iconic images of cosmology interleaved with geometry and vibrant use of colours are seen in both prints. Triangles, circles and script are the basis of his ‘Surya Namaskara’.
Against this vast and varied setting of masterful paintings, Nadees Prabou’s work finds its own place. His passion for street scenes shows in his watercolours, full of wires, cables, tattered banners and signs — the medley of visual tangles typical to India. There is a constant play of light in Prabou’s work and he uses it in a cinematic style, headlights of vehicles through fog and rain, vaporising the screen to captivate imagination. Reflections in puddles and bits of blue of a banner pop out vividly through the smoky after-glow of rain. “I love the rain and the many seasons,” he says. “Where it is very hot or there’s heavy rain, you’ll find me there!” The haze of rain or hot sun offer Prabou a different way of rendering the scene, like filters. He does take photographs of scenes to capture a place but the drama is of his own making. Men with bullock carts forge through muddy streets. “Suddenly a dog may cross the road or a chicken,” he describes, and this odd juxtaposition, in a modern street, captures India for Prabou.
A number of acrylics are devoted to cycle rickshaw-pullers, plying Puducherry’s streets. “In simple colours, just black and red, I wanted to show the man of burden.” At times, there is an impatience laced in the lines of construction of his rickshaw-wallas, literally showing wheels within wheels.
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Temple gopurams form a mystical part of several scenes, appearing from the far perspective. “I like to have a centre of focus and then I play with the depth of field, making other parts out of focus.” Through a compendium of styles, young, old and masterful, this exhibition shows us what makes the essence of an artist.
On at Vinnyasa till March 30th