With the Francophone Festival in full swing, one major attraction that shouldn’t be missed is the exhibition titled Back from France – Living Outlines, retelling the India-France-India story through the artworks of Reji Arackal. The exhibits are from Arackal’s initial works of the ongoing project on violence (physical and mental).
Elaborating further, Arackal says, “My early paintings emphasised contour and minimised human postures where it has been a reaction to my day to day realities and thought process. The act of violence and the man-made chaos were always an active source of inspiration for my art. This particular series was initiated during the time of Egyptian and Libyan civil wars (2010 onwards), like any artist, I am a vigilant observer of a political and geographical map.”
But most of these works are not directly related to any particular incident or geographical location. Throughout history, this man-made chaos has always been an universal phenomenon. “Violence regarding political, and cultural reasons always gave an active space for the artists to interact with the world from many generations, in that sense, I am one of the smallest particles from the same scenario.
The social realities and engagement with them always been a great deal of resistance to experience the essence of freedom. From Goya, Picasso, to all the German expressionists, Francis Bacon to Jake and Dinos Chapman, we have seen the different transitions or narration of same events by many artists. Even if am not directly experiencing some of these extreme physical realities I am still living in the same space and time. I think my artworks reflect at the same time and space,” says he.
Arackal’s artwork also gives a strong message about saving the environment. He believes that man being a social animal has an average consciousness that is more than enough to understand the environmental issues. “Today the whole act performed by the human is creating the critical situation, but I am not being over conscious about a particular situation. I am trying to understand our behavior. In the name of creativity, we are converting our natural inhabits into artificial spaces. Environmental issues cannot be resolved only by the political end,” says the artist.
Talking about the onslaught on art is evident in the present regime, the artist, after observing all the art movements in western countries, felt that we have so much cultural and political restriction when it comes to freedom of expression. “We have seen many of the artist and art form has suffered in the past, the peculiar religious, cultural and political recipe encouraged by the current political regime dominating every nook and corner of socio-political scenario.
The minds of people are being infiltrated by false ideas, lies, and hopes. I think there are movements and individual voices from every corner for correcting the balance, that process should continue through various artistic activities. Many of my works are still being censored by galleries because we still have the cultural bias.”
Arackal interned with Ecole Nationale arts from 2008 to 2009, giving him the opportunity to explore the European contemporary art. “Staying near all the major art museums including The Louvre Museum, Musée d’Orsay, The Centre Pompidou etc. fulfilled my dreams to see all the modern master’s masterpiece. Art students in India still need to rely on textbooks and virtual images for exploring the art and artist from the western modern era.
Observing those original artworks create a huge impact on my visual sensibilities,” says he, adding, “I found the artist interaction with the social system is highly encouraging. Active participation and engagement with art works has been a normal activity for most majority in Europe. The humanitarian aspects of life and universal characteristic approach of the modern western masters still influence my art practices.” The exhibition will be inaugurated today at 6.30 pm and will be on view till March 28, 10 am to 7 pm, at the Gallery Romain Rolland.