A Photofinish for Realism

But in a surprise turnaround, there has been a re-emergence of ‘real’ art after five decades, of a new kind of style that may be termed for the sake of convenience as photo-realism. And as a coincidence, a demand for Ravi Varma has resurfaced. The Royal Gaeikwad’s collection of Raja Ravi Varma is showing at the National Gallery of Modern Art for a show which opened on February 8. Does it mean the art market has come full circle? Maybe it is just one of those ‘swings in taste’ as curator of the show and NGMA director, Saryu Doshi puts it.

But markets, curated shows (both in India abroad) and private collections all reflect a growing taste for a contemporary type of realism. Quite naturally, realism has a different connotation today. Here images are referred from photographs, magazines, film stills and various other forms of media. The artist works from a photograph using a grid. His implements — paper, pencil, pigment and canvas — recreate and relocate these images. ‘‘Most of the artists like T V Santosh, Atul Dodiya and myself do not attributed the images to their source. It is irrelevant, they are there on the canvas because they are correct,’’ says Riyas Komu, one of the artists who may be placed in this genre.

Komu’s recent solo show at the Sakshi Art Gallery had several large canvases with what the artist describes as ‘‘the faces of people captured in the attitude of waiting or foreboding.’’ These are, in fact, the faces of witnesses who bring to our notice genocides, wars and forced migrations. Though the style may be called photo-realism, yet the artists who practice it say the term is defunct. For instance, Atul Dodiya agrees that in 1987 he made the camera his sketch-pad, and yet he clarifies, ‘‘When I begin to introduce my own nuances it is no longer a dispassionate reportage. The American photo-realists followed this maxim. I would not describe my images as cool or detached.’’

Dodiya’s 2002 show that travelled to the Museo Nacional Renina Sofia, Madrid, has images of his father and sister and brother and the artist as a young boy painted on shop shutters. His intimate connection with these images is juxtaposed with a montage of the popular images from Bollywood and the omnipresent Gandhi. Dodiya has also referred to Ravi Varma in the works (Ganga descending onto the locks of Shiva being one of the more famous works).

Says T V Santosh, ‘‘What we all have in common could be that we all use references to start with, but we do not go on to paint or render it in a similar way,’’ he states. For Santosh, who works mostly with old photographs that document the World Wars, the image is a metaphor with a string of ideas associated with it. The very act of selecting an image is complex. ‘‘Sometime I might have come across an image by chance but I may not be able to use it until I internalise it, and have a dialogue that subverts and re- contextualises it,’’ he says.

While artists like Jitish Kallat also react to photographic images taken from various media sources, his act of xeroxing, painting and peeling them transforms the images to an extent that they no longer are ‘real’. One could, however, argue that Shibu Natesan’s distortion and deliberate over stating of light and shade contrasts is also a departure from photo-realism, although it is all a matter of degree.

The intellectual content of these seemingly accessible and simple images distinguishes them from any roadside painter’s shop which displays equal skill in recreating the likeness of image, (one could get a Madhubala or Ambani replica drawn out and painted for Rs 150 but that is all you get). Dodiya concedes that the ‘popular’ label has remained. Says Dodiya ‘‘Realism has always been more recognisable. A collector may find it easy to develop a taste for these works. However, it is not always that they give themselves up to the full understanding of the content of the painting. For younger artists too, I won’t name them, it becomes a simple way of solving the problem of painting. But one has to move beyond technique.’’ Like Bose puts it, ‘‘an artist is not a magician (who performs tricks to entertain) but more of an inventor.’’