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Back to simple lines

Photographer-artist Bharat Bhushan wants his art to reflect the contemporary issues

PHOTO P.V. SIVAKUMAR

FIRST LOVE Bharat Bhushan with his new series of sketches

His first `brush' with the arts was through sketching and painting, and that was what essentially brought him to Hyderabad from Warangal district. He even held solo exhibitions of his paintings in Warangal, one of which was inaugurated by the famed P.T. Reddy. But down the road, G. Bharat Bhushan took to photography as his profession and ended up being known more as a photographer than an artist-painter. However, today, after more than two decades in photography, Bharat Bhushan has gone back to his `first love' sketching. As always with him, he chose to do it in a novel way. He has done 1000 sketches (pencil, and a few with colour) of the most important events of the year 2006, documenting them, as it were.

Masterly inspiration

"I had read some years ago that Leonardo da Vinci had done 10, 000 sketches. That spurred the desire to do something similar. If he could do 10, 000, I could at least try with 1000! And being in the field of photo journalism for decades, I thought it would be good to document the important happenings around us, events, news reports I read in different papers. I started with that idea in January 2006 and with January 2007, I have completed 1000 sketches."

Bharath, however, is not indulging in this for `empty publicity'. He thinks this is a training period for him to go back to his original love for the strokes and fine lines. He says, "All the major artistes in Europe and India were perfect in sketching. Laxma Goud, I remember, used to sit in a cafe in King Koti sketching for hours. Even the sculptor (and a good friend) D.L.N. Reddy does a lot of sketching before he moulds his sculpted pieces. I think for any good artist, being perfect in sketching is a prerequisite."

His first sketch, on an A4 sketch notebook, was that of a Palestinian woman, arms raised up, fleeing. And that was on January 4, 2006.

"I wanted to cover news, international, national, or whatever seemed important from the day's context. I made a sketch of the Gangavarm police firing on fishermen, the suicide of a weaver in Sircilla in the temple of his family deity, Markandeya, Bush's visit to Hyderabad, bird flu, great events in sports"

He wants to prefect his art before holding an exhibition. And it shows in the lines, which are maturing with each sketch. One of his sketches of Naushad , set against some text matter on the great composer, is excellent. So is one of Ronaldinho, the footballer, and one of Vaikanthi devi, a woman repairer perched on an electric pole - these were based on news reports in dailies. Some based on photographs that accompanied these news reports. His present series of sketches ends with a sketch of a defiant Saddam before execution.

Hot topics

Bharath Bhushan is an observer of current events and adds his own bit by way of simple words that describe the sketches. Each of his sketches has a date and a number. He says, "Sadly, there is very little in art today that reflects the contemporary issues. Few artistes are even interested in carrying social comment in their art."

About the difference between his photography (as a photo journalist) and sketching, he says, "The most basic difference is that with this art, you have greater advantage of moulding an event as you like, after the event is over. In photography there is little you can do beyond that point of capturing the mood, emotion, event, of that particular moment."

Bharath Bhushan conceives of creating a series called `newsmakers' in the sketches that covers important events, before he is ready for an exhibition.

R. UMA MAHESHWARI

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