ART
Rustic journey
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The freshness of C.S.N. Patnaik's approach is due to the expressive power of his artistic vocabulary. ASHRAFI S. BHAGAT profiles the septuagenarian against the backdrop of his retrospective exhibition now on in Chennai.
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A preoccupation with the human form.
"I have always had a great liking for village folk and rural atmosphere. I prefer to select subjects from their life style."— C.S.N. Patnaik
IN the last half century and with the onset of the present, exploration and experimentation with technological materials have largely conditioned the artistic productions, dissolving and making fluid boundaries in creations of works of art that defies traditional categorisation as sculpture or paintings. This is particularly so since the artists have expanded their space to create installations, environmental art, and peep shows with iconography derived from popular and mass culture. But amid these varied so-called "postmodernist" strains, there still exists a tribe of artists which is happy performing and creating in traditional medium like bronze, wood, clay and terracotta. The artist in question is the septuagenarian (born 1925) Guntur-based C.S.N. Patnaik from Andhra Pradesh. Through negotiations with so called "traditional" materials and techniques, Patnaik offers a manifold lexis of new forms. The freshness of his approach is due, in large measure, to the dynamism and the expressive power of his artistic vocabulary, since his sculptural production inscribes romantic intimacy, charming ruggedness and sensitivity to life praxis.
Patnaik's adolescent days were marked by freedom struggle, providing him an opportunity to abandon academics and pursue his interests in art by joining the photography studio of Narasimham at Srikakulam. Here, he was exposed to the medium of watercolours and oils, learnt the art of portraiture, and was also educated in the art of 17th Century European masters — Rubens and Rembrandt. These masters were eloquent manipulators of the mystical as well as defining qualities of light — an element which became an integral characteristic of his sculpture. The two stalwarts who aided him in defining his sculptural terrain were Michelangelo and August Rodin. And nearer home it was D.P. Roy Chowdhary, S. Dhanapal, K.C.S. Paniker and H.V. Ram Gopal who served as his sources of inspiration. He studied their works with passion and enthusiasm as seen in the realisation of his personalised style.
Patnaik's politics of representation focus on the construction, particularly of the image of woman. His women reflect "silences" that represent "mute inglorious beings" whose waking hours are a struggle for survival. This acquires valency in their contextualisation as individuals from his hometown of Badam. Their silence is the silence of the centuries, resulting from a lack of education, numbed by economic struggle and impeded by demands of nurturing. Subsumed in this predominant subject of the woman is the focus on patterns of dominance and submission. Nevertheless, it is the spirit of the woman which comes through candidly. And this particularly gets implicated in his themes, which invites categorisation of his broad range of sculptural representations as portraits, couples, a mother and child and single figure compositions, with the dominant image of the "woman".
In collating the individuals of Badam, who are submerged in their struggle for economic survival, a magical/mythical mood is created, which permeates his sculptures with a romantic ambience. Patnaik, in these "women" centered compositions, encounters his subjectivity with intense directness. The loss of corporeality becomes a stylistic feature, the impressionistic tactile textures capture light and shadows in gentle curves and space gnaws at the ragged contours of his attenuated figures that have echoes of Italian artist Giacometti. Patnaik has effortlessly inflected and integrated these power dynamics in his small intimate expressive creations of these village individuals absorbed in their daily rituals.
The slice of life, from which Patnaik draws out the skein of genre of common folks reinforces his mission of their representation in his art. "The Story Teller" is an endearing image of a ubiquitous itinerant rustic raconteur. Strumming on the musical instrument, which she holds in one hand, her words drop down in a melodious rhythm as the story unfolds. The warm tactile quality built up with rough textures is enhanced and complemented by the play of opposites of a semi- nude form with a judicious use of ornaments around her neck and ankles. Interestingly what Patnaik has made of the story-teller is reflective of the male gaze by the overt sartorial minimisation to emphasise the eroticism in its semi-nudity.
C.S.N. Patnaik
But behind the mask of power play in the patriarchal social system with the woman relegated to the inner spaces, Patnaik, in this sculptural piece, imbues it with a sense of fulfilment in the traditional role that a woman otherwise performs permeating the idea with a deep human quality.
Patnaik's compositions reveal a dominant streak of romanticism behind the veil of simple, innocent routine tasks that typify the rural ambience. A small and endearing work, "From the Fair" is reflective of this romanticising tendency representing a farmer couple returning home with their two children — one on the father's shoulder fast asleep and the other a nursing infant. Nevertheless, Patnaik has transgressed to create works that have erotic overtones. "Intimacy" serves well to illustrate this dimension of his approach. It has strong echoes of Michelangelo's "Pieta" in its compositional format, but radically departs from it to be exclusively Patnaik. He has handled the theme with great sensitivity. There is undoubtedly a wild abandon in the representation of the woman but made more life-like as the man tenderly holds her. The expressionistic exaggeration of hands and feet brings him within the ambit of Rodin's forms. The fragmented aspect of his sculpture, namely where he axes the full-bodied representation to emphasise particularised interest in form also has strong echoes of a "Rodinesque" approach.
Patnaik's preoccupations with the human body, particularly the predilection for the supple youthfulness of the woman's physique and her rhythmic spontaneous movements, allows him to capture the drama of body in action. What is privileged in these compositions is the dominant ideology of "motherhood" that vehemently defines his creative contours. His engagement with the overriding dogma of motherhood, makes him foreground the maternal qualities in a convincing manner. Without the "woman", there will be a crippling lacuna, since it is her nurturing instinct that anchors the family making her a nucleus around which every member rallies. This allusion to archetypal motherhood is the defining schema of his compositions, whether it is a relationship between mother and child, or lover and beloved or a husband and wife. The "woman", significantly, is the virtual strengthening bond subsumed within his generic theme. "I give importance to the woman as I always feel that the woman is the only one on whose lap people, from a child to those old, a king or beggar, rich or poor, find solace, protection, affection and relaxation at any time." "The Twins" and "Drumming the God" manifest the inherent twin concepts of nurture in its physicality and abstraction of the sustenance by the mother. The proportions of the women undoubtedly are attenuated, but not emaciated; and Patnaik is attempting either to romanticise or sentimentalise these insights.
The artist is an alumnus of the Government College of Arts and Crafts having obtained his diploma in painting in 1955. He was awarded the U.G.C. research fellowship to pursue studies in bronze making (1975-77) and has his personal foundry at Guntur. Today, Patnaik continues to create with equal zest and enthusiasm. His experimental nature has not diminished and continues to explore in bronze casting and developing patina.
Patnaik's retrospective exhibition of painting and sculptures is now on show at the Forum Art Gallery in Chennai
(November 27 to December 15, 2003).
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