Spiritual Shadows that Speak Silently

Review

NGMA Bengaluru presents a solo show of noted artist V. Ramesh. Portraying devotional poetry by yesteryear’s women poets from the South, the artist brings to light feminine voices interpreting the Divine on his canvases. Nisha Aggarwal reviews the show.

V. Ramesh

The way from Mysore to Hyderabad is via Bengaluru; and between the gaps of the travel timing, I had a chance to visit the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), Bengaluru for the first time. After wandering around the alleyways of Palace Road in Bengaluru, I reached at Manikyavelu Mansion, thus NGMA. The banner of ‘Remembrances of Voices Past’, a solo show of the paintings of artist V. Ramesh at entrance, felicitated. It was the first solo exhibition hosted by NGMA Bengaluru in collaboration with Threshold Art Gallery, New Delhi from February 5 to March 30, 2014.

A glimpse of the paintings of senior artist Vedhanbatla Ramesh through the entrance of hall was inviting to the viewers. Born in 1958, a 1984’s alumnus of M. S. University, Baroda, V. Ramesh lives and works in Vishakhapatnam (Vizag), Andhra Pradesh. He teaches at the Faculty of Fine Art, Andhra University since 1985, and has taught for nearly three decades. He follows a simple routine like anybody else where after teaching at the University he can be found in his studio from 2 to 8 pm, working and listening to Carnatic music being a die-hard fan.

This collection showed the artist’s practices spanning from 2003 to 2013. The show included 17 large scale paintings done in oil on canvas, and 8 works from a series titled ‘Poets passion’, smaller sized watercolours on paper were displayed in a separate section. While his large canvases carried away different individual stories, a video of artist’s talk about his works and process was also on the view.

From the series of Poet's Passion

Ramesh’s priority is of oils on large canvases and his ideas are contemplated over a period of time, building up in an unhurried manner, thought by thought and layer by layer. He keeps changing it until it reaches a stage where nothing remains to be done. It often takes over a year to complete a single canvas. An exercise in patience and painterly detailing, it’s an arduous process by which he persuades the image that resides in his mind and out into layers of paint. His ‘recognizable’ images of bright and murky colours with various textures take the viewer into a realm of spirituality, mystery and obscurity. A manifest mileage of belief, devotion and transcendence, most of his works are imbued with deep cultural and personal experience. The artist’s engagement centers around the writings and philosophies of various Bhakti poets/saints. One can say that Ramesh’s art strives to find a visual equivalent of the emotional depth explored in Bhakti poetry.

He was introduced to the depth of Bhakti poetry during his 1998’s visit to Ramana Maharishi’s ashram in Thiruvanamalai, Tamil Nadu while reading the poetry of 8th century saint, Manikkavachakar, in the ashram library. It introduced him to an opulence of emotional depth that he was trying to bring in his paintings. The poetry of 12th century saint Akka Mahadevi (from Karnataka) that he had first read in college in English translation, now made sense. Then he discovered other voices, 5th century poet Karaikal Ammaiyar (A Shiva devotee from Tamil Nadu), 9th century poet-saint Andal (Vishnu worshipper from Tamil Nadu), 14th century poet Lal Ded (Shiva devotee from Kashmir also known as Lalla Moj) and Annamayya (from Andhra Pradesh). 

The artist found amazing similarity in tone and emotional depth in their writings despite their different time periods in history and in the way they looked at the world and went beyond stereotypical gender roles. In their poetry, all three women explained the body as a metaphor while having a reproached feeling towards the physicality of the body.

Karaikal Ammaiyar

Karaikal Ammaiyar was a beautiful woman who worshiped God Shiva to ask a boon of ugliness, which could free her from the objectifying male gaze. She appears in Ramesh’s painting in the form of a skeleton. Another female mystic is Andal, who used to create garlands for Vishnu taken to temple by her father. She used to try them on first and then hand them over for the temple. Once her father discovered her doing this when he saw her hair on the garland. He made her to create a new garland. That night, Lord Vishnu appeared in his dream and said he wanted the garland Andal had tried on because he missed the scent of her body. There is a sense of devotional longing in the story that Ramesh has tried to portray by painting a tuberose garland against a deep-blue background.

Andal

The third female mystic who is depicted through falling jasmine flowers in Ramesh’s painting is Akka Mahadevi. Akka means ‘didi’ or elder sister, who walked out of her family. Lal Ded also chased out of home by her mother-in-law, walked out naked. A merchant gave her a piece of cloth to cover her. She tore that into two and kept on both shoulders. Whenever someone ridiculed her, she tied a knot in the cloth on her right shoulder. Whenever someone praised her, she tied a knot on the cloth on her left shoulder. At the end of the day, she showed the merchant that there were an equal number of knots on both sides. These are metaphors that teach to take praise and criticism with equanimity. These voices may not seem significant in the 21st century, but they let us think about things that happen in our own lives. Due to poetic resonance, text and allegoric narrative is an integral part of his works making them polysemic to the viewer.

Akka Mahadevi

Remembering Lalla-Moj (Lal Ded)

Now, when I come out of the depth of his works, the question raised is ‘Does V. Ramesh’s stand like a silent shadow in the commotion of contemporary Indian art, with its fancy cutting-edge art practices?

V. Ramesh is a senior prominent artist not in the shadows, he might not be touted as a ‘popular’ Subodh Gupta because his journey is more inward with a conventional medium of painting. He likes to discover the depth of what he knows the best, and has chosen a path apt for his art practice.


Though I could not meet V. Ramesh in person, the artist’s soul could be felt through all of his work. The few hours’ time spent at NGMA, Bengaluru, a place of leafy environs where everything seemed well managed, systematic with vigilant care-takers and security-staff enhancing this must see show.

(First Appeared online in CartanArt, Issue-II, April 2014)