CHENNAI: The Seventy-five years of Freedom series by Bhagwan Chavan, noted abstract painter glows at the far end of the newly opened Alliance Francaise of Madras, art gallery. The Colors of Freedom appears through a forest of glassed walls, stepped platforms, stairways and corridors just like the image of a deity in a temple.
There are just two long canvases that resonate with vibrant color in abstract squiggles that are Chavan’s trademark view of India. There are quotations framed in a text on the wall of the gallery by the artist and art historian Suresh Jayaram. They echo with the words of our founding fathers about Ahimsa, our pledge to non-violence, about the midnight tryst with destiny. In the silence of that glass and granite space only the pigeons standing on the ledge outside seem to agree with a non-committal hiccup.
“I wanted to explore what freedom means to me as an artist,” explains Bhagwan Chavan from his home at the Cholamandal artists village, at Injambakkam. “It’s not just what it meant at that time, freedom from colonial rule, but what it means to our generation today. But living in Bombay where so many of the freedom movements took place- my school for instance was close to the Azad Maidan- and being constantly reminded of the ideas that the great leaders of that time spoke in one voice made a great impression on me as a student.”
He admits that by the time his Father took up the cudgels it was as a Marxist. The mood in the streets of Mumbai as it came to be called, were by union leaders and workers, who wanted freedom with equality of opportunity amongst other demands. These strands too appear as flares of bright reds or streaks of dark pink and gold in some of his canvases. They are deeply layered in most cases. You might think of them as the posters that are pasted decade after decade on the walls of our Cities only to be scraped off and replaced with new ideologies.
As an abstract artist the ideas first came to him in the colors of the Indian Flag- orange, green, the dark blue of the wheel at the center, the white of the canvas on which he works. He decided that he would limit himself to the size of the original flag - that is 2ft by 3ft, and where necessary double the size to suit his needs. “Even Freedom has to work within limits, that’s why I thought of limiting myself to the size of the flag,” he explains. He plans to make 75 different works and exhibit them across the country. The ones here are numbers 43 and 44.
There’s also a quote by the artist C.F. Johan that underlines the idea that an Indian Flag has to be woven together of many strands as it was during the Khadi movement, as volunteers spun the threads on their charkha. “It cannot be a vinyl Flag” he insists.
“It’s from my teachers like Professor Shankar Palsikar (1911-1984) and Prabhakar Kolte the doyens of the Bombay Art Society that I understood the inter-relationship of all art forms,” explains Chavan.
Chavan meanwhile was pursuing his own trajectory of freedom, first by coming to Chennai and finding a groove in the warren of artistic pursuits at Cholamandal.
Then by a chance meeting at Beypore in Kerala, near Calicut, where he was invited to participate in an artist workshop with the famed weavers of the original Calicos that he met his future life partner. It was at Tasara, the weavers institution founded by V. Vasudevan that Chavan met Prasida, a young woman who was also a skilled weaver of art related textiles. Tasara means ‘shuttle’ in Sanskrit. One of the innovations at Tasara was to dye the weft to create art related hangings.
“We started exchanging letters after I left,” says Chavan. “She would write to me in Malayalam. I had a friend who would read them out and I would reply to her through him in Malayalam!”
Needless to add his Marathi speaking Sister was shocked at her brother’s infatuation with a strange girl from Kerala. “My mother understood me. She supported me, though at first, she was a bit reluctant. And Prasida’s family was equally against her marrying an artist!”
When she came to Cholamandal and they found themselves a cottage by the seafront, Chavan also managed to get her a full-sized loom, where she continues to weave. “She’s a mother, wife, and weaver. She works with a shuttle, I work with my brush, the color of our freedom together,” says Bhagwan Chavan.
The show is on till the 12th March 2023. Alliance Francaise of Madras. 24 College Road, Nungambakkam, Chennai 600 006