It has been 11 years since Arpana Caur held a solo. And now when she is having it, it is all so quiet. Without a grand opening and any buzz in the press. It seems in harmony with the spirit of the show “Crossing 60” which is a collection of about 100 small format paper works of 35 years comprising etchings, pen drawings, pastels and gouaches. “I wanted to do it last year when I turned 60 but couldn’t due to personal reasons. So I decided to do it now when I have crossed 60 and that’s why I called ‘Crossing 60’. Artist Nandagopal came to see me one day and encouraged me to show my paper works and etchings that have hardly been seen. About 95 per cent of these works haven’t been seen,” says Arpana whose last solo celebrated the life of Guru Nanak. Why no formal opening? “I didn’t want to subject people to travel such long distances and suffer horrible traffic jams. Also, people don’t focus on art but are busy with each other. I didn’t have an opening but I sent out cards by post and still a few artist friends made it and people have been coming in regularly which is lovely.”
Environment, spirituality, communalism, charkha have been recurring themes in her art. And some of them found a way into these expressions as well. “I have been painting for 41 years. Bigger canvases come easily to me but I find these smaller works very challenging. A lot of these works were done in my room and not the studio, which is also a reason behind these smaller works. The image that goes into a smaller work is so different from the one on a bigger canvas. For instance, there is a work inspired by the cutting of a forest near my house during CWG in 2010. All the peacock in the forest were devoured by dogs. So I made a peacock become a ghost and put a real peacock feather. This image is made for a smaller format work but won’t work on a big canvas,” says the artist.
The oldest works exhibited in the solo date back to 1981. These are etchings of a woman blindfolded, a little girl in the middle of a chaotic traffic in pen and ink and watercolour. “There are about 30 etchings which were done between 1981 and 1995 but I lost 25 plates. Only five remained with me of which I took out edition of 12 a month before the show. Of others I have only one or two prints unfortunately,” reveals the senior artist. Interestingly, the artist has also displayed an old metal plate she had made in 1985 Garhi studio. “There was a time when I was doing a lot of prints though I found it very tough. I like the fact that between you and paper there is a plate,” says the artist who also did a few prints using Stanley Hayter’s colour viscosity technique.
While most of the works draw from the external world like communalism, violence etc., the developments around her showcasing poverty, a few take a leaf out of Arpana’s personal life. There are three pastels which, she tells, were done when she had a bypass in 2007. One of them shows ECG with dancing feet above them bursting into colour. “It was about how a major obstacle has been crossed.” A stark landscape of Ladakh from 1990, colourful prayer flags, works from Sohni-Mahiwal series also feature in the show and are not available for sale as she is taking the show to Chennai and Kolkata.
(The exhibition is on at Academy of Fine Arts and Literature, 4/6 Siri Fort Institutional Area, New Delhi till October 5. )
