RAZOR’S EDGE: ANANDAJIT RAY

SELECT SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2004: For the Future IX, Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai 2003: Gallery Espace, New Delhi 2000: Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai

ARTIST’S PORTRAIT: NRUPEN MADHVANI

AM: How would you qualify the work that you have been engaged in making? AR: I am not someone who follows any agendas. My work is quite open-ended. I like to think that it has a quality of ‘entertainment’ about it.

AM: There is, as I see it, a very strong subversive element running right through…not irony so much as deliberate provocation… AR: Yes, it is deliberate, though I refrain from an interwoven message. When the message becomes too strong, the work just freezes….

AM: Circumstantial details occupy a very important place within your work… AR: Yes, though I strive for less. I want to sort of alternate between elaboration and to try and be more contained.

AM: Can we map the last ten years and the shifts that have taken place? AR: I’ve fl itted back and forth. I’ve just been busy making work, from show to show. Somewhere, I’m a bit lost, really. The quantity of work that I end up producing is not very much, but I’ve been bouncing off from older ideas to move forward…. Such as those cricket bats – it was always on my mind to make small, three-dimensional works… at present I’m much more concerned with form in the local context.

AM: Are things like Bollywood, comic books etc. still a source from where you draw? AR: …less and less…if I watch Bollywood now, I watch it on television…but my interest in Bollywood, MTV, the miniature tradition or kitsch has more to do with form and structure. You have to be able to draw from those structures and reinvent them totally in postmodernist fashion. AM: So, at this point in time, where do the references come from? What is the terrain that you are trawling at present? AR: Very much from myself…not self-portraiture really, but the self…. At this moment, I’m still interested in pursuing painting. At the same time, there is a great need to engage with the threedimensional.

AM: You once said that you primarily see yourself as a painter… would you like to comment on that statement today? AR: Yes, but there is an inner push…to sculpt, even make assemblages.

AM: Your work doesn’t subscribe to any particular ‘ism’, so to speak… AR: Or it does to everything…. When we came to Vadodara and the narrative school was strong, everyone said, ‘Tum narrative kaam kar rahe ho’ (You’re working with narratives). So there are these preconceived notions. There is a strong narrative at play…but I wouldn’t like to be conscious of it. It’s more about structuring ideas; there are a lot of instinctive twists and turns as I go along.

AM: What attracts you to the frame and format that you prefer working in? AR: Initially, it was just a reaction to oils. I said, ‘No, I’ll do small format, watercolour.’ Then you get into the small intricacies. Miniature painting was a strong infl uence. I also enjoy gouache. I like the intimacy, the idea of things opening up, up close.

AM: Would you like to speak about your interest in text, writing, fi lm? AR: I’m very interested in narrative, whether it is fi lm, text, or any sort of oral history. The French fi lm Delicatessen is one example. It was very surreal and strange…I’m bound by something which is defi ned, but that itself is not very defi ned and clear for me.

I have great diffi culty dealing with sentimentalism – I’m not being judgemental, but things become

funny when there is overt nostalgia. AM: Occasionally, there is a zeroing in, a freeze-frame effect that one sees…. Is that an intentional focusing device? AR: Very much…those are also games you play

when you know how you’re going to pull somebody in and then trip them up…. Cinema is a good source for me, because I look at editing very, very closely, in an attempt to be able to break the narrative, fl ip it over etc.

AM: On another note, within your family, were there people who infl uenced you? AR: My father was a chartered accountant; we came from a well-to-do family. My mother is a wellknown exponent of a form of semi-classical devotional music that has nothing to do with Rabindra Sangeet. So was my grandfather, who was a totally eccentric character – I grew up with him till he passed away when I was 11. He had this fantastic ability to narrate…

We had one room, we stayed in that one room, so everything you did, you did with your dadu, you know; after which I went to boarding school which was pukka British…Vadodara was a revelation. AM: Any particular artists whose works you were inspired by? AR: I hung around the advertising crowd; there was Nataraj Sharma, along with Vasu, BV Suresh. At that point I was doing pencil-rendered, huge, surrealistic, bizarre drawings…. There was Rekha Rodwittiya, as also Nasreen Mohamedi, who was most unsparing. My early attention to detail is basically from, I think, Bosch, and a lot of the miniaturists…. AM: To go back to your work, the chiaroscuro is occasionally very surreal… AR: Surrealism is a device that I am very interested in, but the philosophy is too far out for me. Miniature painting can be surrealistic. Odour is another thing that I am intrigued by. I’d like to work with it. AM: There is a very fi nished quality about your work… AR: No. It isn’t so fi nished. There are mixed areas, just painted over, brushed-over areas…. The main image is defi nitely fi nished. I like to keep it openended yet structured. I’m very interested in structure. You could call it obsessive.

AM: How do you assess yourself vis-à-vis your contemporaries? AR: I don’t think I would be telling the truth if I said that the market doesn’t matter. But I don’t have the energy to sit and milk it. I’m very slow, very pedantic. I’d say I fi nd myself at an in-between

Born in 1965 in Kolkata, ANANDAJIT RAY holds a Master’s degree in Fine Arts from the Faculty of Fine Arts, MS University, Vadodara in 1991. He has had solo exhibitions in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and has participated in several group shows around the world. He received the Sanskriti Award in 1999 and was nominated for the Sotheby’s Award at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai. He participated in the Bangladesh Biennale in 1997.

He lives and works in Vadodara.

stage. Which is not a bad thing.

The Aphrodisiac Maker and His Quest to Re-instate Himself in a Position of Past Glory, watercolour and gouache on paper, 20 x 14.4”, 1987

Mouth Brooder, watercolour and gouache on paper, 60 x 20”, 2000

Vehical, watercolour and gouache on paper, 50 x 30”, 2000

I am not someone who follows any agendas. My work is quite open-ended. I like

to think that it has a quality of ‘entertainment’ about it.

ANANDAJIT RAY

Transfi cks, watercolour and gouache on paper, 30 x 40”, 2000

Untitled, watercolour and gouache on paper, 9 x 12”, 2000

Untitled (For Jacque Coustav), watercolour and gouache on paper, 40 x 30”, 2000

SELECT SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2007: Bodhi Art, Mumbai 2007: Lakshmi Vilas Palace, Vadodara 2006: Bose Pacia Gallery, New York 2005: Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi 2001: Gallery Chemould, Mumbai

ARTIST’S PORTRAIT: NRUPEN MADHVANI