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PHOTO: R. SHIVAJI RAO

AN INWARD JOURNEY An installation by artist M. Siva

The tradition here references Siva’s background coming as he does from a family of traditional folk theatre. With this involvement, Siva has internalised some dimensions of theatre that emerge in his paintings as well as installations. The concept of ‘Ambaari’ or celebration underlies his works and emerges in forms such as chairs, umbrellas, palanquins and garlands. Siva’s conceptually evolved works are pregnant with images which serve as metaphors allowing an interface to make a statement about power and the agency of self. Symbols and metaphors play a vitiating role in his works creating tension that makes them absorbing. But they also represent a world given over to sensuous perceptions, offering space for celebration and pleasure.

Though celebration remains the thematic content, one needs to ask a question:

“Celebration of what?” Undeniably Siva is evoking pleasures of a utopian domain, becoming a protagonist unaffected by external reality, providing an antithesis of this with the harsh reality that lies deeply embedded within his subconscious; namely, of a powerful self, in making attempts at establishing his identity within the cultural milieu that grounds him.

The powerful subconscious, therefore, layers his works and mediating with materials as rope and the process of winding it on a chair become cathartic. A release through a ritualistic method, but brimming with aspirations and dreams that he manipulates through philosophical and physical space. Siva’s quasi abstractions are a commentary on his inward journey. He pleasurably searches for an identity in the world of bricolage through the use of spiritual colours such as midnight blues. For Siva, images such as an elephant with a chair placed on top and a jar of ambrosia with a human form slipping into it to drink it are undeniably symbols of power and the pleasure that accompanies it. Siva recreates his utopian world within a surrealistic ambience. The face with clouds and the chair floating in mid space are anchored in an abstract reality. The elephant with elegant decorative scrolls painted on its hind parts has a ghost chair placed on its back. Such imagery also makes it mysterious and enigmatic, enhancing the aura of a distant unreachable reality.

Undeniably Siva’s works are thought provoking and provocative, a duality that is imminently salient in his works. Hence, it is either power or agency of self, reality or abstraction, which come through with clarity in his installations as well as paintings. For Siva who enjoys painting on his own terms, the canvas becomes a carnival space to indulge in this pleasure uninhibitedly.

The exhibition is on at Apparao Galleries until February tomorrow.

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