Mapping Stillness
Works by Madhu Das, Pratap Modi, Sujith SN
Mapping Stillness aims to chart an aesthetic enquiry around the notion of stillness that is perceived in varying degrees in the works of Sujith SN, Prathap Modi and Madhu Das.
In mediums as diverse as watercolours, woodblocks, woodcut prints and drawings, the works are pictorial markers of journeys across fictive landscapes.
While mapping is generally understood as a visual-oriented process depicting the factual, stillness refers to a physical as well as a psychological state of being.
The scope of this exploration extends the idea of stillness beyond a physical condition. Rather, it seeks to address an aspect of stillness – evoked as a visual pause – that has its origin in the realms of the metaphorical and the imaginary.
Distilled from the artists’ formal and conceptual moorings, it lies suspended like an ephemeral presence.
This state of suspended animation also creates an illusion of movement within the works. Often operating within a single work, the two antithetical impulses – stillness and movement – lend a sense of disruption and continuum to the layered narratives.
The artists appear to draw on such familiar photographic-cinematic tropes to expand on the residues of meanings embedded within their works.
In his watercolours, Sujith negotiates the formal aspects of scale and colour to construct panoramic landscapes that may be viewed as poetic-prophetic meditations on the impact of the twin forces of urbanization and globalization.
Underpinning the introspective register and compositional equilibrium that inform his works is a nuanced stillness that allows the viewer to respond to them at a visceral level.
On the other hand, Prathap’s woodblocks and woodcut prints are self-reflexive studies that combine self-portraiture and performance to express themes of oneness and a desire to co-habit in harmony with nature.
The stillness discerned in the passive staging of the self amidst a tableau populated by birds and beasts is offset by the dynamic intensity of the forms, colours and textures that he excavates from his material.
In a series of mixed media drawings on paper – reminiscent of an interconnected yet isolated sequence of freeze-frames – Madhu unpacks a palimpsest of narratives that examine the vagaries of the human condition.
Navigating back and forth in time, the works are oblique comments on a society caught in the web of skewed power ratios and crippled by inertia, articulated through a language that borrows stylistic elements from traditional sources to highlight contemporary exigencies.
The play between stillness and movement gets physically amplified as we locate the works within the spatial and temporal site of the gallery. Originating in abstract thought, they offer an entry point that transports the viewer into immersive realms.