Symphony on canvas

`My latest series is not really new. I have attempted something like this in some of my earlier shows, Sylvan Ballet and Rhythms and Melodies, and displayed some of my works at recent exhibitions, which were very well appreciated,” she claims. The foundation of these series is an amalgamation of abstruse landscapes with music and the substructure of music – the raagas.

Shobha Patki is a student of music and sees a deep co-relation between the two art forms. “I listen to music while I paint. I like listening to the soft mellifluous vocals of Pandit Jasraj and Malini Rajurkar, whose riyaz and depth of maturity I can’t stop marvelling over. It inspires me and I have attempted to trace the pathway of the melody on canvas,” she expounds.

It sounds awfully complicated, but on the canvas the deft strokes make a smooth transition from pure raaga to homogeneous colour. The shades she has used are therefore light, to match the levels of the music – soft browns and yellows, muted blues and muaves. She has tried to capture the vibrations of the music, the resonance of sound, in her canvases. The unfilled white spaces and light touches of colour balance the whole composition, giving a very soothing feeling. Five large canvases of the series were commissioned by the Royal Connaught Boat Club for their conference room, which mingle well with the creamy, air-conditioned surroundings. The artist has worked with Mukund Kelkar, present Dean of the SNDT University, her muse, guide and teacher. Although their styles are dissimilar, they have worked on many murals together on various themes. Patki assisted in the making of the colourful and bright resin-coated murals for a bar recently, showing she is quite comfortable in mixed media.

Shobha Patki completed her Masters in Fine Arts from Pune University well after marriage, when she was a mother of two sons. But thanks to the support of her family, she was able to complete her course, winning gold medals for her work. “At first my work was quite heavy, not only content-wise, but in terms of the material used,” says the artist, who is in her early 50s now. She dabbled in resins, metal chips, hydoxy and even plywood bits to produce heavily-coated, somewhat laboured murals and paintings. “These fetched me gold medals at competitions but I have moved ahead now,” she feels in retrospect.

According to her, her recent works are more spontaneous and emerge from an inner source of energy. “These canvases cannot be copied by anybody. Even I will not be able to reproduce them, because they were made at a certain time, in a certain mood,” she says with a laugh. A lot of introspection is discernible in her entire repertoire, be it the traditional series or the more abstract, melody-inspired landscapes.

Giving a lot of weight to composition, the concepts of Shobha Patki’s paintings are well-thought out beforehand, she says. The interpretation of a painting is clear in her mind, even as the rendition on canvas is spontaneous. Definitely an artist with a clear view!