A POETICS OF SPACE
An ongoing retrospective of Balan Nambiar’ s multi-genre work spanning six decades is a memorable testament to the fierce documentarian in him, finds Nikita Puri
( Clockwise from above) Ritual Symbol, 1974 (acrylic on canvas); one of Nambiar’s photographs documenting Theyyam Kannikkorumakan; an untitled painting, 1996; a structure at JNC, 1999 (mild steel)
Theyyam, explains Balan Nambiar, is one of the oldest ritualistic performances of northern Kerala. “It usually begins around the end of November and goes on till April. But there are far less Theyyams today than there were during my grandmother’s time. It’s dying out,” he says of the religious performance ritual. Behind him is a panel featuring painted faces of participants from Theyyam rituals.
Eighty-year-old Nambiar’s audience for the day comprises cane-carrying senior citizens as well as young art students making copious notes about everything—from his charcoal sketches and enamel paintings to the photographs of religious ritual she has collected over the years.
The guided gallery walk with the artist has been taking place since “Sculpting in Time ”, the month-long retrospective of Nambiar’s work, began two weeks ago at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Bengaluru.
Nambiar grew up ploughing his father’s fields and planting rice in Kannur, in north Kerala. Adulthood saw him join the Indian Railways as a draughtsman in 1959. Prompted by the late K CS Paniker, the powerhouse behind the artist commune of Cholamandal Artists’ Village in Chennai, Nambiar went on to get a diploma from the Government College of Arts and Crafts, Chennai (then Madras). He was 34 then. He moved to Bengaluru soon after and has been here ever since, choosing to teach art to children aged between six and 12, every Sunday, for no fee at all.
“I have my own selfish reasons for that,” says Nambiar. “I am creating an audience for my tribe (of artists). These children will grow up to differentiate pastels from poster colours at the very least. Some of them may even grow up to pursue the arts,” he says. Nambiar’s vision has long born fruition: some among those he trained as children or mentored as adults have gone on to graduate from India’s elite art and design institutes. Some, like Pushpamala N, have helped popularise conceptual and performance art in India.
The show displays six decades of B alan’ s artwork. There’ s a collection of his early charcoal sketches, oil and past el paintings, sculptures made as a tribute to mathematical principles( like the golden ratio) as well as the many research paper she’ s penned on rituals and Indian art. There’ s also a significant collection of the jewellery enamel paintings he began int he 1980s.
“I use almost 400 shades inmy enamelling,” says Nambiar. “Blue itself has 60 different grades.” While he learnt enamelling from his father-in-law, the Italian artist Paolo di Paoli, Nambiar has focused on making steel sculptures for the past 18 years. About 140 of his works are taller than him. And this is when, at six feet, the artist himself towers over much of his audience. His tallest sculpture, for the Bank Note Printing Mill in Mysuru, is seven metres high. His smallest is a pair of earrings (enamel on gold) for his wife, Eva.
“Like on the skin of living organisms,” notes Sadan and Men on, th es how’ s curator ,“his sculptures (often) acquire scabs, pocks, wrinkles—a skein of a narrative that inflects the material’ s solid immediacy with the airy romance of an ineffable anterior i ty .”
Balan Nambiar has focused on making steel sculptures for the past 18 years. About 140 of his works are taller than him
Spr aw led across the gallery are forms of cactiin steel. Another sculpture, a weaver bird’ s nest in steel, hangs from the ceiling, while a seven-foot conch, the “Valampiri Sh ankh ”, arises from the ground. Nambiar experiments as much with symmetry as he does with space and sight, as is seen in his interpretation of the Sri Ch ak ra. Only when one towers over this artwork, focus sing at the centre, do the layers of half triangles come together to represent a geometric ally perfect
Sri Chakra from the body of Hindu tantras.
Echoing throughout the show, thus, is Nam bi ar’ s dedication to the documenting of rituals, be it in the photographs that have rarely been exhibited in public spaces or through the steel sculptures representing alta rs. These rituals are fading away, believes Nambiar, and it is only through such documentation that knowledge of these can be passed on.
“Sculpting in Time” is on at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Bengaluru, till March 3