Man’s longings mirrored in steel
Mirrors (or indeed, any reflective surface) have been reliable and fertile sources of inspiration for artists over the years. The Renaissance artist Parmigianino, for instance, made a self-portrait while still only 21 years of age. The purpose was to show off his skills to potential customers. But in the self-portrait, his hand appears in the foreground, disproportionately large and elongated. The reason: this was his celebrated Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, with the distortion being a mimicking of the way a convex mirror would reflect his image. Parmigianino got the idea for this painting after a visit to the barber; he even had a ball of wood made so that the final product would resemble a mirror rather than a canvas. Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, of course, went on to inspire one of the best-known poems of the 20th century, a poem of the same name written by John Ashbery. Vignettes from the Sky, an exhibition of oil paintings by artist Promila Arora that opened this week at Lalit Kala Akademi, included some very interesting uses of reflective surfaces.
The exhibition has clearly been inspired by architectural splendour, in particular the glazed steel finish that a lot of tall build- ings often go for, in search of a “futuristic” look. Chequered Sky is a bit of an entrée for the collection, and focuses on the “inverted pyramids” that are now popular with architects, especially when designing creative spaces or auditoriums meant for the perform- ing arts. The city skyline is only dimly visible here.
In Stripes of Sky 4, however, this changes: the distortion is much more pronounced. We can see a bendy, ice-cream puddle world that looks like it was a pond of water just hit by a pebble; the windows on the building across the street quiver and try to realign themselves. Right next to the reflected cityscape, we see an exaggeratedly blue sky, with inkblot blue clouds threatening to take over the terrace of the steel monster. When I saw this painting, I felt as if the artist wanted to suggest the fallible nature of all human endeavours. Even the tallest, strongest, smoothest, shiniest of our creations shall be outlived by a perfectly banal sky.
Stripes of Sky 7 is another paean to modern-day architecture; it re-
The buildings are positioned and painted so slyly that the scale of danger posed by the man’s position is not very clear. He may have climbed up that building and stripped off just so he could jump. But then again, he may just be a thrillseeker lulled into a false sense of security.
minded me of the work done on the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, with its swirling steel grid. Two untitled paintings also carry this theme forward: the distortions in these are interspersed with opaque patches of concrete, hinting at the ability of the city to obfuscate, to close its ranks whenever its integrity is threatened. Think about Delhi’s obsession with gentrification and “gated colonies” and you’ll understand what’s going on in these paintings.
In Reach 1, Arora presents an upside- down view of a skyscraper, with airplanes leaving a trail of smoke in the sky, not too far from the top of the building. The vertiginous feeling that this painting induces is carried forward by Civilization 3, perhaps the most interesting piece in this exhibition. A naked man stands at the precipice of a building, as if deciding whether or not to jump. But what will really get your goat is that it’s not just one building, but a trifecta of high-rises that seems to collude with each other as well as the afternoon sky. The buildings are positioned and painted so slyly that the scale of danger posed by the man’s position is not very clear. He may have climbed up that building and stripped off just so he could jump. But then again, he may just be a thrill-seeker lulled into a false sense of security by the “safety net” formed by the three technological marvels in front of him. This is borne out by the man’s rippling muscles and his relaxed pose, left hand casually resting on his waist.
Arora’s photo-realism is admirable, of course, but what is even more impressive is the way she has used reflective surfaces to provide a commentary on the interface of man, nature and technology.