Editorial

It gives me immense pleasure to be the guest editor of this issue of Art news n views and more especially since this particular issue focuses on abstract art, which has always been dear and close to my heart. One must realize that abstraction tells its own story, is everywhere and not centered to any one point.

If one goes back to the Gandhara period, it was a realistic form which was conceived during that time. However during the Mathura period the art form became Indianised and followed more of abstraction than anything else. This is clearly visible in the art form of Buddha done during the two relevant periods.

The certainty of life holds on to the uncertain and manifests in different hues, varied forms and strange connotations. This uncertainty brings a distant charm of my separateness amidst others. A sense of despair and pain gets etched at the very beginning of one's life. The pain of detachment leads to a reunion with the wholeness that brings a strange delight. When you hold a baby in your arms, you feel as if you are holding yourself to the past and back to the present.

The different sound, smell and forms that the external world reveals in a kind of grandeur to us daily our inner self experiences them internally. Like life and death, happiness and sorrow, union and separation, right and wrong, beauty and ugliness, avarice and penance; the vastness of the blue sky drowns us in sorrow and lifts us with happiness.

The wonderful happenings of this Universe which are in our thoughts of philosophical understanding draw us into the act of painting, writing and singing. Even a sword maker, concentrates hard to bend an iron bar to perfection to make a lethal weapon adds artistic motifs to make it look elegant. Like this Art even transcends Death.

At times, when I am left to myself, I excavate my past like an archaeologist. Apart from the ground beneath my feet, the feelings at the core of my life resonates that pain. Some unexpressed feelings pervade and glorify this pain.

Whatever form I carry in my mind, it gets transformed into another. This transformation from one form to other is a kind of expression driven by an insatiable desire to paint. Nature is mysterious; it unfolds itself in a riot of expressions. This process of becoming makes Art vivid.

Abstraction has no relation to the established tendencies of our mind in restoring/ recollecting/ recognizing or understanding things around us but the feelings that emerge within us are formless and abstract in nature. The formless abstract feelings have strong desire for appearance and the very appearance is bound to take shape or form which may have no relation with any pre-established identity of things. Abstraction in Fine Art from formless to form bound. It is the only desire in terms of energy that generates a power to grow and take shapes of its own.

When one thinks of their mother the immediate feeling of the motherhood comes about which in itself is an abstract form. When the Sun sets near a river bank the setting Sun is visualized in different means by the person watching it. The different means are based on the person's mood at that point of time. This reflection is different when one is happy and totally different when one is sad. This difference is totally based on the state of mind at that point of time.

If you look at an apple, you immediately come to know that this is a fruit by the shape and colour. However the taste can only be had once the apple is cut and eaten. The apple given to a child is one form of where as the apple given to a sick person who is recuperating is another form and the same apple placed in front of a deity is totally a different form. Abstraction tells its own story in its own manner. This has been my source of inspiration of my works as it is what comes from within the inner thought which is always been reflective in my works.