Cholamandal Artist Village

D. Venkatapathy

Upon the recommendation of friend and colleague, Virginia Jardim, while in India I visited a community of painters and sculptors who were at the forefront of the Indian Modernist Movement in the 1950's-80's. They live together just 25 minutes south of Chennai in a place called Cholamandal Artist Village. I arrived at their museum with a friend via a hired car, and was greeted by the manager, S.Nandagopal. Since we had exchanged emails before my visit, he was so kind as to insist on refunding our tickets (R20 each) and give us a guide who introduced us to four resident artists. 

This is D. Venkatapathy, a painter whose shock of while hair only serves to underscore his intensity. He told me about the beginning of the artist village, how they built everything from scratch with the help of some government funding and visiting artists and architects from India, Europe and North America. 

Then I walked down the dirt street to a house with a large outdoor workshop full of half-hewn bodies in stone.  Here, I chatted with Nupur Chatterjee and Rajasekaran Nair in their home studio, a cool, cozy brick abode that feels somewhat medieval with the brick cobwebs encircling their cast iron and granite sculptures adorning every nook and cranny.  

 

Nupur Chatterjee works with metal. Her work is small, taking inspiration from forest floors strewn with mushrooms, tree sprouts, and leaves. (She also has a fondness for drawing cats, and unfortunately I don't have a picture of them here.) She studied at the Shantiniketan Campus of Viswa-Bharati University, founded by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. She came to Chennai after graduation, upon hearing about what the artists were trying to establish here and has been here for over 7 years.

  

Her partner, Rakasekaran Nair, sculpts semi-figurative granite forms that are more monumental and stark in their polished black and rough grey surfaces. "The work is time-consuming and difficult," he tells me. "Granite is the hardest stone." His figures remind me of the soul, sinuous forms breaking free or emerging from the restrictions of stone. Like metaphors for the mind.  

This is the self-designed home of the painter P. Gopinath, who was also one of the first artists to settle at Cholamandal Village. Originally from Kerala, he came to study with the founder K.C.S. Paniker (1911-1977), and has since taken a leadership role in the community. His beautiful studio is filled with expansive windows to maximize airflow and light. 

His work is saturated by the colors of the earth here (which is often a gorgeous orange) and the spices and surroundings of his native Kerala. 

Kenji Matsumoto: Japanese Sensibilities in Indian Wood

Photo c/o Kenji at japaneseartfurniture.com

Two hours south of Chennai on the southeastern coast of India is a town called Auroville. In stunning contrast to the surrounding region, Auroville is thoughtfully planned, clean, and international. A number of buildings and street lights are solar powered. The town is run more like a collective than an oligarchy.

A view of the Matrimandir, an incredible structure at the center of the town that is wrapped in petals of glass tiles that enshrine real gold. It is an architectural marvel.  One can go on a tour and meditate in its white inner chamber lit by a ray of sunlight hitting a clear globe. I felt that I was in a space ship made by magical elves!   

Much of the food available is organic and delicious. They have outdoor exhibits featuring the far-off cultures like Khazakstan and Tibet, as well as advancements in green technology.   

The Auroville Visitor Center

It is here that Kenji Matsumoto moved from Japan with his wife, Ikebana teacher Valeria Raso, over 10 years ago. He began by using the large knarled roots of felled trees to create highly original stands for Valeria's ikebana arrangements. When the stands became popular, Kenji expanded into tables--creating one-of-a-kind furniture  pieces of exquisite beauty by hand. 

Photo c/o Kenji

Being June, I was visiting during the hot off-season when Kenji's studio happened to be on break. His apprentices were away and the shop had been quiet. Still, he generously opened it up to show me his tools and talk about his work. 

Kenji's process is intuitive. He looks at a raw piece of wood and designs from the existing patterns in its grain. Rather than shave off what others would consider irregularities, he brings them out as beautiful forms. He is a sculptor in collaboration with nature.  

I asked Kenji how his work is received in India. He said, like the Japanese, Indian people have a very close and spiritual relationship with nature. Thus, they have an appreciation for pieces that reflect nature's beauty and want such things in their home. The people who commission and purchase his work love that each piece is one-of-a-kind. Such furniture is not as common in India as it might be in Japan and other East Asian countries, where this aesthetic and craft has developed over hundreds of years.   

 

Photo c/o Kenji

All other photographs by B.A.M.

Smoke & Mirrors

This stone once shone like a pool of water when struck by moonlight streaming in through a temple window.

How often do we seek to fool one another. The sleight-of-hand, the not telling, the hiding, the holding in. Changing the subject. Distraction with pacifier. Shock and awe. The peacock's feathers. 

What does one do in the face of purposeful duplicity. 

What does one do when one finds one's self chin-deep in a pool of swirling truths and lies. Each mixing, melding and reforming like a marble of stunning complexity. 'Till the original assertions become indistinguishable, each part of a fabric. The warp of beauty woven thru the weft of cunning.

This reminds me of my friend, Somyot Kumsang's fantastic wave of elephants and dragons. He did this when we were together in Bodhgaya. Everyone was stunned. What a fantastic illustration of tumbling thoughts, of confused emotions, and of politicians.

Polonaruwa in the rain on Valentines Day. 

 I am in love, enamored with this ancient place. In this age, we have the privilege of admiring the hubris of kings, who competed fiercely not just thru warfare--but also thru art--each one building more gorgeous temples to trump the previous generation. 

What would happen if art were the medium for warfare today? 

The shadow remains of a protector at a shrine. 

This stupa was once painted with the milk of a thousand breast-feeding women. (I wonder if they had breast pumps?)

Gal Vihara. A 12th Century Theravada (and Vajrayana?) shrine with enormous statues carved into solid rock. A Sri Lankan monk, Manju Sri Thero, pointed out the vajras at the base of this ancient Buddha carved into the rock face.

An hour and a half away in Dambulla, a film is being created about art and forbidden love. This is Ranjan Ojha who plays Shyam for VARA, Khyentse Norbu Rinpoche's new film.

Throughout my time here, I have had the privilege of interfacing with Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche and Harsha Navaratne. Both movie makers and spiritual men. Leaders of movements, inspiring thousands. They are masters of swimming through the aforementioned pool, I believe. Makers of the cinematic mirror that reflects life. 

Here Rinpoche is wrapping up the shooting of his new film, Vara (The Boon). The clay hands are those of Saraswati, Goddess of the Arts, whose statue plays a central role in the film.  

Somehow, this all ties together. Art, love and the pursuit of truth. 

The Question: Is truth worth pursuing? 

Or should we just dance through the marbled water as it falls around us.

Real water. on real stone. 

There comes a time in one's work where it feels like you're teasing at the edge of madness. Where you are living in a movie, and things aren't quite what they seem. Like you've slipped through some rabbit hole, unknowingly, as you toiled through the night.

Its a precarious place. A dimension simultaneously between waking and dreaming.

I recently discovered that pictures taken in moonlight, saturated by long exposure, are somehow richer than those blasted by the rays of the sun. Its as if, in moonlight, objects are allowed a place of rest, to be themselves, to emanate their inner qualities. Their true colors.

These days, I prefer the solitude and quiet of the night to the gregariousness of the day. Ran than feeling blinded by the darkness, I feel as though I can see through things. Beyond the facades and surfaces. No displays, no pretensions, no distractions.

To be able to live in true darkness is a privilege afforded by the jungle. What little light there is surrounds the human dwellings. We are technically creatures of the day, fearful of the dark. And hence, we deprive ourselves of its secrets--and its wisdom.

In these circumstances, what little artificial light there is can blind you to the world beyond its reach. Ironic that illumination can be a source of darkness.

Here is a photograph of the lake behind Larry (the pooch on the porch above). I shot it just moments before meeting him that same night.

I guess I've always been a fan of subtlety. Of saying more in revealing less. Of teasing the audience, making the role of viewing an active engagement of the imagination. 

These days, as artists in a world deprived of art education, we have to teach our audiences to see. Most children are not taught how to read paintings, photographs, sculpture. Many have no experience of making it themselves, and so have no insight into what makes art valuable. Half the message is in the process the object conveys. I believe this truly. 

Yet, unless we use we use the medium of the vernacular like television, popular music and movies, we are speaking in a foreign language. And even then, if we want them to be moved at a deeper level, we have to take them by the hand and walk with them through the work. Just as my calligraphy teacher would teach me, by letting me experience the ink strokes one after another, hand in his. 

I was born on Oahu, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Within two weeks of my birth, I was crossing that ocean to Asia. Throughout my life, I would continue to criss cross between islands and continents. Now, as my work takes me to different countries, integrating different written languages into the fabric of the paintings and projections, I am challenged to speak across cultures as well. I feel as though I am sewing the earth together, just as I might unite different parts of myself.

Perhaps that is why I now find myself drawn to the night. Something about letting down our hair, letting down the curtain, letting down our guard. In sleep, we become vulnerable but also intrinsically honest. In this state, the subconscious rules. And the subconscious is the true judge of art. Intuition, that place behind the theatrics of logic, is the only trump card we have to education. If we listen to it, it will lead us to what is true.

And that place of truth is what makes art a universal language.