Recent Paintings by Viren Tanwar

The light-footed ease with which Viren Tanwar moves, in his work, from one phase – series of concerns, in fact – to the other, and then on to the next, keeps one on edge as it were. Some things might appear to remain constant, or at least keep recurring with frequency: the short-stroke candy-stripe grounds, for instance, that impeccable sense of colouring, the elegance of forms, the questions he seems always to be asking. But other things change. He is in the world of large headless men with pulsating figures, standing wondering, today, in that of circus gymnasts a while later, seeing them swing and balance and teeter, and mingling with gods and goddesses, nayaks and nayikas, the morrow after. The poet Iqbal’s verse comes to mind:

Kabhi hairat, kabhi masti, kabhi aah-i siher-gahi hazaaron rang bharta hai yeh mera dard-i mahjoori

Roughly rendered:

(Filled now with wonder, now with joyous abandon, sighing at the sight of marvels unnamed;

This aching heart of mine keeps soaking itself: in colour after colour after colour.)

Wide-eyed, it appears, Viren keeps looking at the world around him, even envisioning the one above, but he prefers to see things at a slant. Nothing is quite what it seems to be. If two gymnasts, a man and a lithe young woman, are on swings high up in the air, moving towards each other, down below two tigers appear on the ground, one of them beginning to leap towards the other placed at the opposite end: in imitation of the players up in the air, one wonders, or waiting to pounce perhaps should those above lose their grip and fall? When a man stands, like a rueful Noah, hand thoughtfully resting on chin, face inclined downwards, while an upturned boat lies at a distance, one begins desperately to guess at the thoughts that might be crossing this man’s mind: did I succeed? Should I venture out? Or take another painting: two lovers, both of them completely unclothed, face each other: the man sits up legs stretched in front, while the woman – lying full stretch on her stomach, lush body, supple limbs – gazes at him, head raised, one wondering hand touching the face, excitement in the eyes. In a corner of the painting, above them, appear fronds of plantain leaves and a suggestive looking bunch of bananas hangs from a branch. But there is more – or is it less? – than an erotic air to the image. While with lazy grace she toys with a spray of lotus blossoms between her upturned toes, he keeps looking at a thread-puzzle, like a cat’s cradle, that he has woven around his fingers, not even sparing a glance for her at least at this moment. Are we seeing tensions here beneath the surface? Has a trap of some kind been laid? Is this a love-play – krida – of another kind? It is hard to know. We are in a world where, as I remarked once, Viren is covering things up on the one hand and slicing them open on the other, as if aware of the twin processes that remain at work in art that of layering on the part of the artist and of uncovering on the part of the viewer.

The untold riches that Indian miniatures of the past hold have been beckoning Viren for some time now. He sees them, even embraces them, but then gives the viewer something different to think about. For he springs surprises; once again, nothing is as it appears at first sight, or as it was in times gone by. He is not in the business of imitating, or lifting passages, or even of painting decorative images. Interpretation, fresh viewing, seems to be his aim. When he takes us in hand to gain a vision of Shiva, he makes us see him lying, a little like Vishnu on Shesha, but floating in the air, not resting on the sea of eternity. There the great god lies, child-like on his side, almost asleep, embracing the serpent that is always his and bits of the tiger-skin that is often his seat peeping out from under his body, while the crescent moon shows behind the coils of matted hair on his head, its sharp ends rising as if they were some dread demon’s horns. Down below, way down, the great god’s mount, the bull Nandi, crouches patiently on the earth, rendered like scalloped layers of grassy green ground. Why this distance between lord and mount? Why is Shiva asleep which he seldom is, in mythology? Why does the crescent moon take this shape instead of resting, part-hidden, in his jatas? Is the painter hinting at other dimensions, other aspects of Shiva’s persona that are hidden from view? After all, even Kalidasa had noted: ‘na santi yatharthavidah pinakini: there is no one, no one at all, who knows all that is to know about the bearer of the Pinaka bow, Shiva. In Viren’s work, Krishna, looking quite different from the Krishna one knows, dances upon the serpent Kaliya, flirts about with the gopis and unites with them, Hanuman flies through the air, now bearing aloft the mountainous rock with the healing herbs on his hand, now placing it on his back, like some toiling mortal. Thoughts keep rising in one’s mind.

That is the way Viren proceeds, questioning, provoking, mystifying. And just as one is grappling with these matters, he would take a swift turn and paint a thoroughly urban, pop image of a man standing, cigarette in hand, gazing at lurid neon-signs, and cinema posters. What is next, even he might not be able to tell.

Dr. B. N. Goswamy