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Squaring off with circles
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Balancing his two formidable identities of being a Van Cleef and a counsellor for design house Cartier, Olaf Van Cleef finds himself in his art, learns PRIYADERSHINI S.after a chat with the high-profile artist
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Photo: H Vibhu
Mosaic of colours Artist Olaf Van Cleef’s works are replete with Indian motifs
A maze of colourful squares and circles, a labyrinth of meandering lines, bursts of colours, gleaming tiny crystals and shiny gems on paper is artist Olaf Van Cleef’s mind. From the renowned Dutch family, Van Cleef, he is an advisor to design house, Cartier. Caught between these two formidable identities he escapes into the colourful world of art. “It is not a nice background because it is very heavy. In between all this where is Olaf?” he asks, and places himself lightly, gently, in all his works. He is there in the chariot, listening intently to Krishna, or snaking as a symbol through the maze of squares and circles, dots and designs.
But his ‘heavy’ background cannot be denied nor does he do that. “Only 15 Van Cleefs are left from that big family. Rest are all dead, in Auschwitz. That’s the story,” he says cynically.
Van Cleef’s India connection goes back to the 30’s when his grandparents came and lived in Mumbai for six years. It was at that time that his grandmother came to Cochin.” “The king here welcomed everybody. That’s the difference. So many people died because they were Jewish. But in India no Jew was deported or persecuted. There is liberty of faith. India is a special country and I have had the opportunity to know it.”
So steeped is he into India that it is one of the prime inspirations behind his art. “I want my works to ooze Indian culture,” and they do, especially the series on exhibit. From gods, goddesses, nawabs, begums, prince and princesses, not to overlook the monkeys, coconuts, mice, lotus all the motifs that is there to India find beautiful expression. And the figures are bejewelled by the designer who counsels clients for Cartier.
Fine details
“I don’t like symmetry in design, in jewellery, or in art. If a person is totally perfect, in my opinion, the person has a problem. That’s the way with life. That is what gives it the challenge.” A challenge that he meets in details, in little nuances, shades and craft. Working on “very clever paper” he splashes it with colours that symbolise, love, family, tenderness, and relationships. A rush of gentle green or pink or blue runs across and is worked in gouache with plaster, stuck with golden chocolate wrappers or crystals; a relief of squares and circles. The finished mosaic is a colourful gem studded work.
“I see everything in colour,” he says, and explains why Indian artists use burnt colours. “There’s so much sun here so everything is burnt, but in France we want the sun, the colours.” Coming from the family that Gouda cheese traces itself to, Van Cleef routinely uses the food metaphor in conversation. “Delhi is like Mughal food, Mumbai has the shine of Bollywood, Kolkata is like delicate food,” says the artist who delves into the sounds, sights and smells of the places he visits.
On his association with Cartier he says, “For me Cartier is a taste, top, top taste. It is not like marmalade on the butter on the bread but it is marmalade, very thin on very good bread and with half a spoon of caviar on the top. It is very delicate.”
Van Cleef who began painting at the age of 51, says, “I burn very late.” But that perhaps is the reason for the maturity of his works. They are a study in itself, the present works on Indian mythology and Indian thought almost touching the spiritual. “Why does Kali have a tongue like that, why is the God blue?” he questions and finds the answers. His closeness with the country and the people has made him sensitive to their ways and he fiercely protects and justifies the Indian ways. That’s where he believes he differs from another renowned Frenchman, with a love for India, Dominique Lapierre.
Though Indian by choice his Dutch genealogy surfaces time and again. Among the maze of gods, goddesses, peacocks, crowns, chess, rubies and emeralds, the quaint windmill stands as a symbol of Van Cleef’s very own world.
At 57 and having lived across countries, worlds, Van Cleef goes beyond art when he says, “I have a small ideology. If you give a little, you receive a little, if you give a lot you receive a lot, perhaps you don’t receive in this life but that’s not important.”
That’s not important to him in this life but an afterlife? “Yes, my Indian friends tell me that I was here two, three hundred years ago. India has given me a just place.” And it is a well deserved justice to this Indophile.
Van Cleef’s first solo exhibition, ‘Diamond Diwali’ is on at the Brunton Boatyard till November 12.
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