The lines between art and advertising have always been a little smudged. I’m thinking of Toulouse-Lautrec’s frothy, lively posters for the Moulin Rouge, perhaps also of Andy Warhol plundering the imagery of Campbell soup for his art. It’s no surprise then that Yayati Godbole, a man with over two decades of experience in advertising, has turned to art with his show, The Accidental Abstinence of the Now, currently on at Gallery Art and Soul.
Godbole spoke to us about how he plucked inspiration from advertising to feed into his art. “The study of human insights and behaviour has been a key source of inspiration, as the show is based on observations of how the human mind is never in the present, but is always dwelling in the past or thinking about the future,” he says.
The show consists of a progression of pictures of vacuous-eyed, jaded faces on paper, canvas and alarm clocks. Godbole uses predominantly black and white, expertly sized and placed dashes on figurative forms with intermittent splashes of colour. He says, “Thoughts have their own forms, patterns, shapes and even colours.” And then adds, “Some thoughts have a clarity which is almost linear as if they’re in black and white; and some are coated in hues layered with elements that transcend reality.”
The artist’s use of the alarm clock is especially poignant. Godbole explains that it speaks more strongly to the fact that the “moment ‘which was’ or the moment ‘that will be’ are more important as the hands are still and time has stopped at one juncture and the mind is reliving those moments.”
Godbole’s art is a reflection of the current human predicament.
The show’s press note informs us that “the mind is never still, it is constantly traversing... And in the vast arena of the mind, the manifestations of the past and future come together to create a pattern, a friction, a collision, sometimes dominating or sometimes just a mere hint of its presence. This constant battle to maintain the balance between ‘that what was and that what will be’, creates an Accidental Abstinence of the Now .”
In brief, I suppose, Godbole investigates and critiques our lack of focus on the present, the ephemerality of our thoughts. In doing so, he frames this within the context of Indian philosophy. “Most Indian philosophy is about finding moksha ,” he says, adding, “Philosophers also talk about the stillness of the mind where it does not deviate, but remains still in the now or the present time.”
An important and necessary function in today’s entropic and discombobulating times.
The author is a freelance writer
The Accidental Abstinence of the Nowwill show until August 31 at Gallery Art and Soul, Worli
