His works hang like antiquated bursts of colour on the gallery’s pristine white walls. Artist Pradeep Nerurkar’s ongoing show ‘Seeing is Muting’ at Gallery 7 captures a spiritual and inward journey through a lens of abstraction and experimention with surfaces. “I accept the classification of abstract art because I don’t work with figures,” says the artist. “I’ve always been drawn to the style since it deals with the space of the unknown, and a realm that is not easily definable.”
The works on display are an enthralling play of coarse textures and vivid colours. They’re the products of a unique process that Nerurkar employs.
“The surface itself occupies the position of a painting. I don’t make these pieces. Rather, they happen,” he says, pointing to the ragged overlapping layers of the cotton canvases created by him. The abstract compositions are unfettered in meaning, which lends the viewing a muteness of introspection. The gaze is drawn to silently slide across the surface’s many creases, folds and tears to celebrate textures.
While the seeing is muted, Nerurkar describes how his process of creation also honours the vacuum of silence.
“I strive to capture a certain rawness in my process of paper-making.”
The artist explains how he developed his own unstructured procedure to discover a surface. It’s primitive, and draws on the textures that unravel from drying and dyeing cotton pulp. Nerurkar’s studio, in a farmhouse situated in a valley, provides a unique point of inspiration for his works. Sometimes in the monsoon, he lets his works imbibe the environment by making his distinct papers soak in soil, or take on the rugged surfaces of rocks.
The artist finds the process of soaking fascinating, as without dialogue, his body of cotton pulp beautifully absorbs its surroundings. Well-known abstract painter Prabhakar Kolte describes Nerurkar’s works as a meditative “creative sojourn”. “Cotton pulp works like a… body of his painting [where] unidentifiable images… emerge from his… quest for the pure visual experience.” Asked about his favourite piece, Nerurkar smiles and says, “That is yet to come.”
Today’s the last day to view Pradeep Nerurkar’s ‘Seeing is Muting’. Gallery 7 at Kala Ghoda is open from 10.30 a.m. to 7 p.m.
The writer is an intern with The Hindu
The compositions
are unfettered in meaning, lending the viewing a muteness of introspection
