AT HOME IN GEOMETRY AND COLOURS
CHANDIGARH-BASED ARTIST, MADAN LAL TALKS ABOUT HIS THREE-DECADE LONG JOURNEY AS A PAINTER
HE KEEPS LOOKING AT the old woman sitting by the roadside who is making tea for us. He says that such visuals provide a relief, especially when you have been living in a city like Chandigarh where geometrical patterns and Soviet style dwellings can be overbearing.
Artist Madan Lal, whose painting Urban Phulkari, a 5X5 acrylic on canvas which is part of his Urbanization series, has been selected for the National Akademi Award, says that the attempt was to capture his mindscape where blank spaces of migration from a rural environment never leave. “Without being romantic about it, the emphasis is of course on ‘home’ —a word that evokes silence in most of us who have experienced internal migration. As far as the award goes, I don’t think it is for a particular work, but in fact a tribute to my three-decade old journey,” says the 52-year-old painter, who is originally from Talwandi Sabo in Punjab.
Lal’s art, which over the years has shifted from layers and transparencies to flat colours and mixing of figures and abstracts, feels that the constant evolution has been a result of both trying to make a space and being constantly away too. Of course, his signature style, ever since he shifted from the countryside to Chandigarh, stays—prominent geometrical patterns. “During my travels across the world for residencies, making them into temporary emotional shelters and then destroying them as soon as the ticket back ‘home’ is booked, has surely lent a new vocabulary to my work where mayhem takes a certain precedence,” says the Vice-Chairman of Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi.
The artist, whose series like Music Within (2004) and Journey into Blue (2015) catapulted him to national fame, laughs on the state of art in this region. “People from Punjab and Chandigarh started buying my works after they started getting displayed in major galleries in Delhi. They still make the effort of going and buying there instead of approaching
me directly,” says the artist, who starts his works with drawings.
Talk about the kind of work being done by contemporary artists in the region and Lal says, “It’s really sad to note that they seem to have a very drawing room focus. Unlike artists in Delhi and Mumbai, nobody wants to produce something that has not been attempted before. Everyone is playing safe and not averse to getting influenced by major artists based in metros.”
At a time when art education across the world is seeing innovation in terms of education about the market and close interaction with working professionals, Lal laments that in India, things seem to be going backwards. “Imagine, now they are introducing semester system in art colleges. Look at the Government College of Arts in Chandigarh. Students are expected to churn out a work every two months. Hasn’t everything become mechanical?”
Currently working on a collaborative installation with Shirley Siegal, an Israeli artist, Lal feels that the Punjab government needs to do more for students of art. “There is a huge vacuum once they graduate. Even small grants, short-term scholarships and a collective studio space can give them a great push.”
BESIDES PAINTING I LISTEN TO SUFI MUSIC l INFLUENCED BY OLD MASTERS LIKE REMBRANDT l FAVOURITE CONTEMPORARY ARTIST TYEB MEHTA l NEXT ON THE CANVAS SERIES TITLED SPACES IN THE MIND