It's all in the mind

Living in the now' is a phrase Dubai-based Yayati Godbole cannot help but reiterate when he talks about his upcoming exhibition, The Accidental Abstinence of the Now, which will be unveiled at Worli's Art & Soul on August 16. After all, his paintings on canvas and clocks in ink, charcoal, acrylic and glass marker show the mind constantly evaluating the past to make sense of the future, often forgetting that it's the present that dictates the course of our lives.

"Living in the now is easier said than done. We're either rushing to complete what's due tomorrow or wondering how things could've been different. I too get trapped in such thoughts, which are accidental, not intentional," says Godbole.

It was his chancing upon a photograph of crowds waiting to wish Britain's Queen Elizabeth on her 90th birthday that gave birth to this profound thought. The photograph showed a group of boys ready to click the queen on their cellphones, peering at the screen, while an old lady waited calmly and looked at the 'real picture', the now.

Saturated as an adman of 25 years, the 47-year-old then decided to explore his artistic side. The result: 24 clocks and 17 large and 28 small paintings. Godbole's sketches of large faces with vacant eyes filled with repetitive lines remind of Jogen Chowdhury's cross-hatch technique and figurative form. "To maintain the same strokes and pattern, I keep my mind on one plane, very calm, almost meditative. I've noticed the imagery fluctuates even with slight distraction," says Godbole.

Each of his paintings are made up of seven to nine coats of paint to reflect the multiple layers of thought or connotations the mind derives from a situation.

Certain symbols become leitmotifs to demonstrate the constant flux of the mind: horizontal and vertical planes that cross off the other like latitudes and longitudes to show how the past and future often clash. Tiny dashes on the face, like a two-day stubble, resemble the markings prisoners make on cell walls to note the passage of time; an upturned boat and paddle reflects, perhaps, a journey unpredictably thwarted; lush green patches signify the present that can thrive only if nurtured daily; slivers of psychedelic hues represent pleasant memories that people revisit to feel better. For the works to not appear too flippant or dark when viewed at a go, he's played around with these symbols in terms of size and placement.

Godbole also transfers the same imagery on round, double-bell alarm clocks, thus making time his canvas "to capture a moment and keep it there."

Perhaps the human psyche always fascinated Godbole. Advertising taught him to analyse target audiences and predict their buying patterns. And observing how people drown their sorrows in alcohol and weep at the barman's shoulder tempted him to become a certified bartender from the European Bartender School, Phuket.

Godbole hails from a family steeped in art: his father, mother, sister and himself are all graduates from the JJ School of Art. While sister Yamini Telekar is director of the Delhi Art Gallery (DAG) in Kala Ghoda, father Avinash was an art director and the artist behind Debonair's erotic illustrations, two decades ago and still paints despite partial paralysis. In 1996, the family even had a group show at the Nehru Art Gallery, titled Gharana.
Godbole's already plotting a second exhibition. This one professes that man is not an island, but a river, ever-changing because of all life's experiences he carries along.