Senior artist and photographer Rameshwar Broota digs deeper into the nature of timelessness. Using the viscous resin, he preserves ambiguous memories within the transparent layers. In his show titled ‘Scripted in Time II’, Broota creates visuals that are meant to stir an aesthetic conversation, not necessarily to derive meaning from. “The viewer should first find the art interesting enough to want to gaze at it. If a definition emerges, they are welcome to embark on that exploratory journey,” says Broota.
It was three years ago that he began pondering if morsels of memory could be preserved forever. After researching far and wide, he came across resin, the transparency of which encouraged him to take the study forward. “I ordered resin from abroad as extremely poor quality was available in India. Using a stack of attractive paper cuttings, I placed them within layers of the material, which I found was very difficult to tackle,” he says. “I used those cuttings as an experiment to see how common material would react to resin and found that a versatile narrative could be built along the sidelines,” he says.
The first piece he achieved looked beautiful, and thereon, he began rummaging through various creative possibilities that would become the custodian of the passage of time for him. What you see in the exhibition showcases a meticulous layering technique on which the artist has etched a gibberish script in waterproof and archival ink. It’s been layered to bring out the nature of memory that settles one on top of the other in our mind. To make the language coherent, was intentional. “I didn’t want people to get lost. My purpose is to invite them to create their own interpretation,” Broota says.
In each of his works, Broota uses technology to sculpt the characteristic of his story, documenting everything from the mundane to special. Each of these is printed on the Corning Gorilla Glass, giving them a lucid, real-life texturing that seems to have frozen important snippets on his overarching thoughts. “My intention is simple. I want to create an environment where the individual doesn’t shy away from self-examination. Art facilitates this process. And I am happy to be the creator if this process in my own little way,” the artist signs off.