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`Work should speak for itself'
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Jogen Chowdhury doesn't believe that money can entice serious artists
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PHOTO: P. V. SIVAKUMAR
ART WISE Jogen Chowdhury is not for commercialisation, publicity and page 3
A dinner in his honour doesn't appeal to him . For that matter, neither did the $900,00 his painting fetched at Christies a couple of years ago. Jogen Chowdhury is a serious artist who feels that he belongs to an era of artists where commercialisation and the amount of money his work brings in is inconsequential. "Yes, it is a validation, but not something that is important. Serious artists know this and are not bothered about publicity or a picture in the paper on page 3," he said on his visit to the city.
Jogen's association with art goes back a long way. He comes from a family of performing artistes - his father was part of the village theatre group - and speaks fondly of the memories he has of his life in Faridpur, Bangladesh (which was then East Bengal.).
"When I was young itself I was interested in art. But I was not forced to take it up." In fact, his early works are centralised around water and, in part, are a reflection of his childhood days.
He explains the reproduction of this saying, "When I was young, there was a lot of water all around like ponds and tanks. East Bengal is a wet place, you know." Jogen has been teaching at Shantiniketan since the last 20 years and has a studio there as well.
The collection currently on display at Kalakriti Art Gallery is more recent and makes use of varied techniques. He favours no particular medium and says, "Ink, water, pastels and oils are all ways for an artist to express themselves. Even poems and words are ways to express." Little wonder that Jogen has done a few collections of poems too. His vast experience includes a one year stint as a textile designer and then as the curator of the Rashtrapati Bhavan for 15 years. The Dead, pen & ink with pastel on paper has been done using a screen, with cuts on the figure depicting wounds. Another piece done using a screen is Man in Bed. The face on the dry pastel of Abu Gharib on paper has been crushed and then painted for effect. Many of the paintings on display art looks like it is heavily influenced by the time he spent in Paris at the Ecole Nationale Superiere des Beaux Arts, but Jogen says it's not so. "I have always been interested in painting people. Even before I went to Paris, I used to paint figure forms." Two of the art pieces on display are from a private collection. The smaller one is of an impromptu sketch he did many years ago. A few serigraphs are on display and sale as well.
What: A Calligraphy of Touch and Gaze by Jogen Chowdhury
Where: Kalakriti Art Gallery, Road no 10, Banjara Hills. Ph: 66564466
When: Until September 30
RENUKA VIJAY KUMAR
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