city as studio residency

                                                                 vivek, jyoti, agat, kavya : 'the city dweller'

                                                                     devika's house, before studio

                                                                         inder salim, sujit, soumya

                                                            jyoti, kavya : 'abstracting the body, image and representation debate'

                                                                                     solly benjamin, gitanjali dang, rashmi

                       

                                   

The snake looks for his friend. It hung from the twig waiting for his prey. He knew what he wanted, and he got what he wanted. He lived within walls. He knew, you can only talk to a form, by being a form. He anchored himself to a twig, a home, a way of seeing himself, an illusion, and grew larger every day, in the land of all things that moved.
And then on an odd day standing at the lining of the water, under a rock, it decides to shed its skin. a great endless sea formed before him, of the things he is, an infinity way beyond his power to choose. He began undoing the walls, until he was so naked he was week before the clothed, he had nothing to show.
He was the open sky and the bottom of the sea, and nothing in between, where the frogs resided. His every motion a kaleidoscope forever changing form, breaking not becoming. He was the undefined in a sea of definitions. His power to tell good from bad, prey from predator, and himself from another was gone, he was free, he lost his power to resist - not the filth, nor the gleaming water, nothing except wanting.
"you are in control, I, out of . I go everywhere my body takes me, I stop at nothing."
Does it take more courage to anchor yourself safely to a raised boat, or to make yourself vulnerable in an endless sea of myriad shades?
Freedom amidst illusion is confusion.
The wind slithered down the gaps in the tree above, and landed within, tormenting the naked, playing with it like a cat plays with its unsuspecting prey before killing it.
He knew no way back and he had no skin to hide under.

 

Winners

We exist in a system. It has a defined vocabulary, set ways of working. The one who does not know it's ways is alien, he does not matter.
Among the insiders, there are those playing with its blocks, the believers, looking to win or sustain, and those who question the bricks, the mechanics of the wall.
To seek one must step outside, a change maker must always be a seeker, but not a seeker alone, they must observe as an outsider, while creating within to change.

Every artist moves the world in his own little way, movement requires detachment but creation or impact requires immersion, the voice of the system, the ability to be heard. It is that precarious and beautiful balance between the outside and inside that makes for change, that creates the new.
Born free and alike, we sink so comfortably in what we know to be 'sense' - we are fed it as we grow. It takes a jolt, an aberration to be thrown of it's linearity, to even question it, to not comply.
it is (usually) a movement from freedom to certainty, and then, the choice is yours: to build by accepting and using those blocks, or create by breaking them down. Both are beautiful consumptions, and consumption is the way out.
I believe, if there is creation, there is also the need to deconstruct it, some create, others destroy.

He who evades set forms or belief, and has the courage to make sense of the world for himself, is a seeker. The one who has the courage to not conform, and yet create within, is an artist. He is not merely the builder, another brick in the structure, nor is he the seeker alone, for while he seeks worlds outside, he creates to move what lies within. Every artist is a seeker but every seeker is not an artist.
The artist subverts established forms and definitions to seek the new; afflicted by his own need to make sense. He breaks the boundaries and illusions he creates, to seek the infinite, to go anywhere there is the possibility of going without being held in a box, a belief, a bias.
Our actions are random choices, and what can only be controlled, can be a play with accidents, with the nature of life itself.
But can you exist within (continuously evading form), without a firm ground under your feet?
To question and believe at the same time, that perhaps is the tightrope walking we must perfect.

Meaning or essence lies only at the deep ends, the bottom of the sea or the open sky. Everything in-between is tending, incomplete. The experiences are still a learning, but is unpurposeful meandering enough for the seeker of sense? Is it any use if one cannot go all the way- be as foolish as he can, be as wise he knows?

Who are we, those who call themselves artists? Playing another role, another mechanic, another brick in the wall, or are we the twisters and turners of the wall?
To be the latter, we cannot bury ourselves in it's bricks, we must keep everything but our toes out, while we look for 'our' wall, understand our world for ourselves. Who are those around me? Am i right, or are they? They talk about subversion, while conforming at the most basic level to the building blocks of the system. Cease at looking different, talking different, within a blind compliance to a comfortable framework. The winning rat or losing rat, is still a rat. Is it not ironical to scream that you are different, by conforming to a herd? Isn't that the only way to be heard, though? and must we come to it? I wonder if is it evolved sense, knowing that one must be what one must break; or is it merely ignorance, a play with illusions of the self?

So, you can move? But do you have what it takes to be heard? To be heard, you have to speak the language of the world.
Can you be heard without being part of? Can you not be part of, and still move a thing? To resign or fade into yourself is an option too, but a complacency the artist's spirit goes beyond. The artist must discover and change, he must use his desires to break free to find his own. Most importantly, he needs most to be a winner among the muck, for only winners are heard. And for that, he must be inside what he wants to change.

One way or the other, we come back to the same thing - to win, the only means to  survive this beehive. 

                                                                         weary evenings

                                                                  kill him with my love

                                                                              market

                                                                    lines/perspective

It seemed i was moving too much towards a kind of disfiguration, getting caught in one mould.

Seeing all over again; uncharted walks. Start at the open. I can do anything. every medium, every method, every manner that offers itself to me.

Trying to draw lines, buildings, use softer tones.

What i choose is accidental.

sketches here and there

 

                                                            "youre sexist, im speciest"

                                                                   a flailing simar

                                                                    arindam

                                                                 rosalyn d'mello

                                                                 simar again

                                                             friend's parents

                                                                       vidha

                                                     "youre too postmodern for me."