HYDERABAD: Some art aficionados gravitate towards Rembrandt and Frida Kahlo, while others sing praises for Vincent Van Gogh and Pablo Picasso. Whoever the artist and whatever the style, one thing is certain — true art is that which pleases both the soul and eyes in undefinable ways. And abstract art has always both amazed and perplexed us with its deep meanings. Sushant Sharma’s ‘People Who Never Were’, a recent exhibit of 10 finger-painted abstract art canvases in Gallery 78, did exactly this.
Artists may have inspirations but always develop their signature styles; Sushant, who goes by the moniker ‘Sushisurge’ in the art realm, created black-and-white abstract art out of faces.
Now, these weren’t traditional portraits or paintings — the artist basically painted the strokes in a way that resembled faces. He revealed that there is an interesting story behind this, “This was something I was exploring under reductionism; I wanted to decipher how much I could reduce from the face for it to still look like one.
What I’ve come to realise is that while several elements in art can be replaced, a face is irreplaceable because it shows expressions, personality, and individuality.”
Indeed, we were awestruck as we walked through the gallery, pausing for minutes on end in front of each painting. Sushant had christened them too — ‘Catacombs’, for instance, represented an ossuary of past ambitions, which were meticulously stacked as a souvenir. Essentially, the very ambitions that wholly consumed you once are just memories now. Powerful, isn’t it?
The dominant theme in Sushant’s abstract exhibit was the use of eyes. The artist said, “As I was slowly reducing different elements from a traditional human face, I realised that what eyes do in terms of depicting emotions and interacting with the viewer is irreplaceable. Without eyes, the soul is lost.”
A particularly attractive artwork was ‘The Archive’, a pair of twin abstract pieces displayed side by side. In the painting on the left, there was more white space and in the painting on the right, there was more black space. The idea was that every individual is a sum of his or her past, both good and bad. But what stood out was ‘Taxidermy’ — definition-wise, ‘taxidermy’ is the art of preparing, stuffing, and mounting deceased animals with lifelike effect for display.
As individuals, we change over the years, don’t we? And this can mean that we bury some of our traits. Sushant’s ‘Taxidermy’, a butterfly wing fashioned out of his signature faces on a off-white canvas, suggested that there are traits of you that can be displayed for scrutiny and nostalgia.
He also collaborated with talented craftswoman Pooja Chamudiya, who created two beautiful off-white vases using porcelain and stoneware clays. These clays, when fired at a certain temperature, become ceramic. “I literally built these pots by hand, rolling and building layer on top of layer over a few days.
Once built, these pots were left to dry slowly for a few weeks before they were put in the kiln for the first firing, which is called bisquing (half firing). Once out of the bisque, these pots became Sushant’s canvas and he painted them with a ceramic underglaze. Finally, they were coated with transparent glaze and put in the kiln for a final glaze firing,” she explained.
Sushant expressed his love for black and white. “You can convey so much without colour. Black and white is simplicity and liberation for me. I know that abstract work is hard for people to understand. Some people understand and others say, ‘What is this?’ But the thing is, they’re allowed to. You can find things beautiful without understanding them completely too.”
In a world where we try to decode every single thing and attach a definition and label to it, Sushant’s ‘People Who Never Were’ represented with ease the inner workings of the mind, heralding a new era in abstract art.